I actually disagree somewhat with Janet Poppendieck’s argument there, or at least some of the wording. It is always dangerous to look to the past for examples to follow, or to find an ideal arrangement that existed once but was lost. Our memories are simply not that good, for one thing. And for another, the conditions of the present are complex and inter-related. That is, trying to recreate the good things of the past will always come out slightly wrong because the context has changed. I also think it’s wrong to think of the past, say when kids had no money and couldn’t raid the vending machine, and imagine a point, or even a series of points, when we could have made better choices, when paths diverged and we took the wrong one. I don’t think it’s right, or even possible, to stop giving kids money and hold them back from the pressures of the consumer world. I don’t think that’s so terrible either.

The solution, I believe, is to focus on the decisions we can make, and to assert ourselves there. Frightening as it is, the pervasive consumer culture we all live in is a culture of choice, not of necessity. Rather than trying to shield kids from the mind-control monsters of processed, packaged “food,” we should focus on providing alternatives and teaching kids to believe in their own good judgment. To me, that means providing kids with healthy food from local, sustainable sources both at school and at home, but also teaching kids to be thoughtful, informed, and confident consumers. Even for adults, it’s tempting to try and shut it all out, to ignore the non-food and “brand fan-club” pressure. But that is the world we live in. What kids need more than anything, I think, is to learn to face those consumer pressures head-on: to gather information on what they consume and make confident, intelligent choices. And most importantly, kids need to know exactly what they want from their food (be it sustainable, local, or organic production, healthy ingredients, ethical treatment of livestock, or anything else) and to demand food that meets those needs. Ultimately, the great evil of the processed food industry is that it asks us to let someone else make the very personal decision of how to eat (that is: what to eat, how much, where, when, why, with whom). As destructive as it is to market these products to children, they will be marketed-to for the rest of their lives, and the most important thing is to teach kids to trust their own judgment, even when advertising speaks so directly to them.

“Well, when I was a child, kids didn’t have money. We got modest allowances for maybe a trip to the corner store once a week, but children today are major consumers in the economy, and the food industry realized that if they can establish brand loyalty among children they are likely acquiring a lifetime consumer. There’s really a concerted effort to enlist children in the fan clubs of particular brands while they’re young and I think it’s extremely destructive because the items that are heavily marketed to children are not subject to nutrition standards.”

http://www.salon.com/life/education/index.html?story=/food/feature/2010/01/13/poppendieck_fixing_school_food