Police in Montreal say that videos of food fights on YouTube and other web video sites have caused an increase in food fights at schools. There are have been three different incidents in Montreal schools in the past week, and up to 20 police officers had to be called in and stop one fight that lasted three hours.

I can honestly say I've never been in or even seen a food fight, except in movies and TV shows. I did get grabbed and held up against a cafeteria wall by the assistant principal one time in middle school. He accused me of skipping school the day before. I mean, yeah, I did skip, but he could have been a whole lot nicer about it.

Coffee is hip (actually, it's been that way for several years now), and everyone is drinking it, including kids and teens. When I was a kid, we never drank coffee. It was seen as a "grown-up" thing to do, right up there with having sex, smoking cigarettes, and mortgages. But now you see kids and teens with a Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts cup in their hands, and coffee shoppes are the new malt shoppes.

The Boston Globe's Beth Teitell has an interesting piece on the trend, noting how we try to cut high sugar sodas and fat-filled candy from schools but we're not really thinking about high calorie/high fat/high sugar coffee drinks. Funny how coffee was always seen as an adult thing when soda has caffeine and sugar in it too.

Over the course of the last year, schools have come under fire for putting unhealthy options in on-campus vending machines, prompting some states to ban junk food and others to try and work out healthy snack plans with the food companies. As a result, many schools have been left without snack and soda vending machines. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you can bet that at least some of the kids are disappointed.

To try and take up some of the slack that the departure of unhealthier fare left, the Dole fruit company has taken its own initiative to start a program "that will put vending machines selling healthy food products into schools." Dole's machines will stock fruit, fruit bowls, salads, sandwich wraps and milk. The salads and sandwiches will be prepared fresh at a nearby (or possibly on-campus, if available) cafeteria.

The machines will be launched in 15 schools in four states - Mesa, Arizona; Denver, Colorado; Shawnee Mission, Kansas; Corpus Christie, Texas and Conroe, Texas - in February, but the company has high hopes and is already working on plans for expansion.

Some school districts have started giving kids a new grade on their report cards: their BMIs. The Body Mass Index is a scale developed by the National Health Institute to provide a rough idea of your body condition, from unhealthily thin to uhealthily overweight, based on height and weight. The many criticisms of the BMI scale include the fact that it does not really take into account muscle, so a very muscular person will score worse than a chubby person of the same height. The standard scale is only designed to apply to adults, not to children, so although the New York Times does not note it in their recent article, we will assume that the children's BMI scale, which also factors age into account, is being used at these schools. The results are probably marginally more accurate, but children grow and develop at such different rates that it is doubtful as to how useful the readings are regardless of scale.

The schools' goal in instituting this system, which is being used in Delaware, South Carolina and Tennessee with legislation pending in several other states, is to motivate parents to watch their kids' weight and have their kids eat healthier and exercise more. Unfortunately, kids also see these report cards and seeing that one, flawed number can wreak havoc on a small child's self perception. Many have reported want to stop eating when the see their results and others simply tease the skinny kids (reports are used in grades k-8). This is not helped by the fact that many of these schools are not offering healthier food options or an increased number of physical activities.

Finger-pointing has rarely helped anything and, when six year olds decide that they are too fat and begin to refuse to eat, the issue needs to be reexamined and better solutions need to be offered. At the very least, the schools could offer some suggestions to parents as to what types of activities they might encourage their kids to engage in and send the results home separate from the report card with a letter explaining what they mean.

Although some children will be quick to point out which foods are healthy ones to their parents, not all children have reacted so positively to the recent changes in school lunches. At least, they haven't in the UK. The BBC conducted a survey of secondary schools (middle and high schools) and found that at 60% of them, there had been a drop in the number of students that were opting to buy the school-provided lunch since the switch to a healthier menu. Only 10% of schools had an increase in the number of students taking lunch since the change.

It's too bad that there isn't any US data on this phenomenon after so many schools and school districts have placed restrictions on what types of food are appropriate for kids to have access to during the day, but it seems likely that the problem would be a similar one, especially with older kids who can easily leave campus or go out after school to get the fries and pizzas that they have always had access to at school until now.

The problem is one that will gradually go away over time, as the kids who were used to the "old way" of doing things graduate and the number of students who think that they are entitled to something greasy and unhealthy will decrease compared to he number of children who might actually look forward to a healthier lunch.

Since everyone seems to have decided that more regulation is needed to control the obesity problem in children, it's not all that surprising to see companies agreeing to curb advertising and limit the availability of products left and right. In this case, an agreement was reached with Kraft Foods Inc., Mars Inc., Campbell Soup Co., Dannon and PepsiCo Inc with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a project of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association where the companies agreed to cut back on some unhealthy snacks.

At least, they said that they would try to.

The companies voluntarily agreed to "discourage schools from stocking vending machines with treats that are high in calories, fat, sugar and salt" and increase their promotion of healthier foods, defined by those that meet the "guidelines backed by the American Heart Association." The problem with this agreement is that schools can still stock whatever they want to and, in some schools, the administration is going to continue to stock what sells: junk foods.

But how much of a difference do the school vending machines make anyway? Not all that much, according to some students. "Junk food is great," said 13-year-old Victor Jimenez. Carlos Rodriguez, 13. "Kids will buy what they want," he said. "We just stop by the bodega on the way home."

As the old adage goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. The same sentiment holds true for kids, who can be quite stubborn where food is concerned. At home, parents can monitor what their child is - and is not - eating to make sure they learn to make healthy choices. Now that the school year has started, however, ensuring that the kids get a healthy lunch can be harder.

One thing you can do is, as we have mentioned before, get your child involved in preparing the lunch. S/he can pick out the fruits and snacks that look the tastiest from the healthy foods you have available (aiming for fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein most of the time, of course). If it is hard to get your child going in the morning, however, you might not have time for this bonding activity. So, other tips include:

To celebrate their 35th anniversary, Starbucks is serving drinks from cups bearing their original logo for the month of September. The logo (top right) shows the Starbucks mermaid in full, complete with split tails and bare chest, unlike the more streamlined version that is usually seen in their stores.

BloggingBaby mentioned that a Seattle area school saw some problems with the more detailed logo. The principle or an elementary school in Kent, Washington has asked teachers to make sure that the logo on their coffee cups is completely covered up if they bring it into school. A spokeswoman said that the principle "thought that it could be distracting for students."

Some students, like one 12-year old, said that students would definitely talk about the logo if they noticed it and said that the rule was a good idea. Parents in the area largely thought it was unnecessary, especially considering the very small size of the logo on the cups, and commenters at BloggingBaby felt the same way. Schools, they felt, have bigger problems to worry about than an inch high drawing on a coffee cup that isn't particularly scandalous.

Taking school lunch reform what might be a bit too far, preschool teachers in New South Wales, Australia have begun to implement lunchbox inspections. The teachers have banned foods including chocolates, candies, cakes and fruit rollups, taking them away from the children and sending the items home uneaten if they are found. The ban on foods deemed to be unhealthy extends to birthday cakes as well, where a plain, homemade vanilla cupcake - no icing or ice cream - is the most appropriate treat.

One teacher said "It is just as much about educating parents as it is the children." Even though the teachers say that this is a good way to encourage healthy eating habits, it is sending a message to the parents to prepare the lunches, not the children who receive them.

It is noted by some experts that the teachers are not following an official direction to inspect lunches, but that they have taken it upon themselves. How long it will continue before parents protest - or conform - remains to be seen.

Some schools are offering parents a new way to watch what their kids eat. Instead of simply offering healthier choices in the school cafeteria, students will have to use a fingerprint scanner to "pay" for their foods. The scanner debits an account that the parents maintain and it will have built in spending limits, so parents can set aside $5, or whatever the cost of the school lunch is. The main benefit of the scanner is not to provide an easier way to pay for lunch, but to prevent kids from buying unhealthy junk foods when they're off campus. If they don't have any cash, they will be forced to "buy" their food as school, rather than skipping lunch and eating a king sized Kit Kat and a Slurpee after school.

There are other applications to the fingerprint scanners that might make them a more useful choice for schools, as well. For example, they could replace the regular "roll call" and students could sign in by scanning their finger when walking in to class.

Today, the American Beverage Association and its members agreed to voluntarily remove sugary sodas from public schools across the country. Companies including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Cadbury Schweppes are all members of the ABA. Public high schools that still permit diet sodas will still be able to buy them for their campuses, and they will also be sold drinks that are considered have some nutritional value, juice, sports drinks and low-fat milk, though whole milk will no longer be offered because of its calorie content. Elementary and middle schools will only be sold unsweetened juice, low-fat milk and water. Part of the reason that the soda companies have agreed to this deal, which was made in conjunction with the William J. Clinton Foundation, is that on-campus soda sales make up a very small percentage of their overall sales, not to mention that a voluntary withdrawal looks better, from a PR perspective, than being banned.

 

Schools have been considering and enacting bans on unhealthy snacks, from eliminating soda machines to setting strict nutritional standards for foods that are brought in to sell to the cafeteria at lunch. The goal is to avoid putting students into situations where, perhaps due to peer pressure, they choose nutritionally poor foods over healthier ones. Some obesity-conscious educators want to take things even further and ban outside snacks from the school yard. This would not only effect the treats that teachers bring in to celebrate birthdays and other events, which would no longer include cupcakes or cookies, but could potentially change the way that parents pack lunches for their children.  A few schools even have bans of sweet foods at school parties, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"Every bite counts because of concerns over childhood obesity, experts say," but they also should look at the amount of time children spend in school, and what they're doing with that time. Suggesting that parents provide smaller or healthier treats is certainly a positive step towards combatting childhood obesity, but it is not a suitable solution to the obesity problem when schools are also cutting the length of and funding for sports programs and recesses. Nutritionists say that diet and exercise together are the keys to a healthy lifestyle, not diet alone. That standard is the one that should be enacted in more schools before kids are left with only celery and raisins at snack time.

It's that time of year, the time to look back on the stories that made 2005 great. Our countdown began with God and TV, then touched on the weird and the wonderful. Finally, that most American of all themes: the lawsuit.

There are more than a few people out there who continue to give lawyers a bad name. Some of them are the lawyers who take on what many people deem to be frivolous lawsuits. Sometimes it is the lawyers who take it upon themselves to speak up for people and protest what they perceive is a legal violation or some sort. These may not be all the legal battles caused by food this year, but they certainly were noteworthy ones, whether they deserved to be or not.

1. Silver dragées. This lawsuit isn’t new to 2005, but it is ongoing nevertheless. A California lawyer had essentially managed, much to the chagrin of bakers in the state, to block the sale of little, silver cake decorating balls in the state in a suit against candy makers and bakers. He cites health risks despite the fact that there has never been a documented case of poisoning from silver dragée consumption.

2. Bottled Fly Trauma. In , a hairstylist and his wife were awarded more than $300,000 after finding a fly in a bottle of water. Neither the man nor his wife consumed any water and, in fact, the bottle was unopened. The couple mentioned that they were “plagued by nightmares [and lost] of their sense of humour” as a result of the incident.