Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes

[Dizzy]

http://grist.org/list/nine-year-olds...aking-changes/

Martha Payne had some sad-ass lunches at her school in Scotland —unsatisfying food that sometimes had more hair than vegetables. So the 9-year-old decided to start a blog with photos and vital statistics about her meals. Almost immediately, the blog got international attention, including from prominent school lunch busybody Jamie Oliver. Result?Martha’s dad just met with the local council,and it announced that kids could have unlimited salad, fruit, and bread.

For each of her lunches, Martha rated taste, healthiness, and pieces of hair (usually zero but not always). But she only managed five ratings before the media attention started making the school self-conscious:

Today was very different at lunchtime. Dad had already told me beforehand that some people from the Council were coming to lunch with a reporter from our local paper. There was also a new system for ordering food which I’ll explain when I understand it more. I didn’t see the visitors having lunch but I saw them hovering about and watching us getting served.

For the first time ever I have seen at lunch cherry tomatoes, radishes, carrot and cucumber shreddings.

You can see vegetables getting more prominent on Martha’s plate over the course of the blog. Here’s her lunch from the day when the council officially announced unlimited fruits and vegetables:

Health rating 9/10, bitchezzz!

In the U.S., people mainly worry that schoolkids eat too much lunch, not too little. But there are really a lot of intersecting issues —quantity, quality, even efficiency (my sense from the blog is that Martha is getting rushed through the lunch queue assembly-line-style, with little chance to choose her food). Schools do a lot of ugly calculations, weighing kids’ health against cost and expediency. But apparently, making that public is sometimes all it takes to force a change.

I hope Martha enjoys her unlimited salads (and her brownie, which she said was “better than Dad’s”). And I hope the school council enjoys the taste of crow.

[Dizzy]

Oops forgot the blog link!!! It's fab!

http://neverseconds.blogspot.com.es/?m=1

[AussieAshley]

I really enjoyed her blog, I even bookmarked it for later. I think the quality rather than the quantity of food is the issue in most schools.

[Dizzy]

I never read blogs, but I read every post on hers.

[Kat09Tails]

Is it just me or is that an exceptionally short blog? It's clever either way. ^.^

[Dizzy]

Originally Posted by Kat09Tails

Is it just me or is that an exceptionally short blog? It's clever either way. ^.^

I think it's very new!

[ACooper]

I think it's very good the school responded and did something better instead of getting angry and attempting punishment on the girl. Well done Martha

Not a new concept by far, I've read school lunch blogs before.......they don't all get attention and/or action though!, LOL

[GipsyQueen]

Thats pretty cool!

I remember my grade school lunches - and how unhealthy the were. (Foot-long hotdog, pizza, pb&j)

[Brattina88]

Hey lunches look amazing compared to the school lunches I had growing up

[MinPinOwner]

growing up I only ate school lunches on Fridays which was Pizza day. Other than that I hated the school lunches in elementary and middle school. In High school they had normal school lunches and ones that were from local restaurants. I loved those lunches. I got Pizza that was from a local pizzeria.