US military says school lunches are a threat to national security

Monday, July 19, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: school lunches, national security, health news

(NaturalNews) A group of retired military officials recently expressed concern that school lunches are a threat to national security. According to them, the food being fed to children at public schools is making them "too fat to fight", leaving a potentially considerable gap in military recruitment.

"Mission: Readiness", the non-profit group of over 130 retired military leaders that is calling for healthier federal food for children, is expressing support for new legislation that would outlaw junk food from schools so that more children will qualify to enroll in the military.

The group believes that "national security" is America's top priority, so it is doing everything it can to increase military enrollment, even if that means supporting and passing federal food restriction legislation.

According to the group's report, roughly 75 percent of all young Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 do not qualify for military service because they do not finish high school, have criminal records, or they are not physically fit enough to serve.

According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics, the number of states with 40 percent or more of the young adult population being overweight or obese has jumped from one to 39 in just ten years. Currently in three states, more than half of the young adult population is overweight.

Mission: Readiness is calling on Congress to amend the Child Nutrition Act to include three new policies:

- Permit the USDA to adopt updated nutrition standards that would eliminate high-calorie, low-nutrition junk foods from public schools.

- Provide additional funding to improve the quality of food at public schools and increase the number of children who have access to it.

- Administer school-based programs to teach parents how to teach their children to adopt better eating and lifestyle habits.

Sadly, the motivation for such legislation does not seem to be for the actual benefit of the children themselves, but rather to fuel the endeavors of the military-industrial complex. And while there are some good proposals for switching to healthier food in public schools, threatening proposals to further increase federal control over people also seem to be present in the push.

Supporting healthier food for children is always a good thing, but it's important to lead the charge as a free and independent people, rather than simply grant increased power and control to federal bureaucrats. Remember, if they have the power to give it, they have the power to take it away.

Sources for this story include:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/school...

http://cdn.missionreadiness.org/MR_Too_Fat_t...