Examining lunch bags
How far should everybody else have to go to, to protect the children of others from food allergies?
As you may be aware, peanut and other allergies are potentially deadly. Many children have died over the years after accidentally ingesting something to which they’re allergic. It’s usually peanut butter or another nut derivative or eggs and milk products.
Lots of schools have bans on certain food items because of the risk to other kids. I recall a stand-up comic I saw in Montreal talking about how his children were not only prevented from bringing peanut butter to school, they were forbidden to eat it at home. He labelled that rule as going too far because peanut butter was his daughter’s very favourite food. He said why should he deny his own child her favourite food in her own home?
Modifying everyone else’s behavior does teach kids a sense of responsibility and some awareness about their potential impact on others.
Now a group of schoolchildren (no doubt led by their worried parents) are trying to reinstate a voluntary lunch bag screening program in Woodbridge. The system ran for six years but it was recently shut down so the kids are asking the Human Rights Commission to enforce it for good. If it does, it could set a standard for schools across the province.
It seems a bit extreme but when a child’s life is at risk, maybe there’s no such thing as going too far. As the lawyer for one of the kids’ parents said, if it were your child, you would understand.
December 7th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
This can’t be easy. Is it not better idea to set the rules for the parents and guardians who pack the food for kids. The lunch bag is not guns. If we do not have rights to check every kid’s bag for guns, why food?
December 9th, 2007 at 9:26 am
The facts simply put come down to this. There was a policy albeit an informal one that lasted and survived for five years, until the new school board trustee placed a new principal at this school and (poof) the policy was discontinued.
If this informal policy never existed it would be a different story. The fact of the matter is, these children were accomodated successfully and without great expense or difficulty for five years. This informal policy in affect became the school’s formal one. Discrimination occurred when this policy was discontinued.
The case is about taking away an accomodation based on a disability.
Once an accomodation has been made it cannot be taken away. At the very least it must be grandfathered until the founding children have moved on to other schooling.
December 10th, 2007 at 9:19 am
This is nuts…any child with an allergy to nuts is well aware of the consequences of eating a peanut, and invariably will take precautions to avoid them, but to penalize everyone for the one is ludicrous. Why not just nip it in the bud altogether and ban farmers from growing peanuts? If a parent is so worried about their child take them out of the school system and teach them at home. We are living in an age of overly-protective parenting, I’m surprised most of these people let their kids out the door in the morning. At what point is being cautious going too far? These same people shuttle their kids around in massive SUVs so as not to inflict any damage to them in case of an accident, wearing protective gear and a helmet, no doubt … GET REAL AND GROW UP … take some responsibility for your own place in this world and stop inflicting your concerns on others.
December 11th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Lunch bag police? Do the rights of a few outweigh the rights of the many?
By that I mean: Do the rights of a few allergic children override the right to privacy of the rest of the student body not to have intrusive searches inflicted on them for something as stupid as food?
What about financially-challenged families that cannot afford to alter their children’s lunch diet from very nutricious, inexpensive foods like peanut butter, egg based pasta, etc? Are the families of the children with the allergies going to compensate the rest of the student body’s families financially, where financial impact takes place?
If these kids win at the Human Rights Board, the rest of the province’s schools will have to comply, by hook or by crook. That means many neighborhoods, where kids are lucky to eat one meal a day, will have the odious financial burden of accomodating an allergic child’s needs thrust upon them. These poor families will have to find a way to pay for more expensive, substitute “allergy-friendly” foods just to accomodate the allergic children. School breakfast programs will be forced to pay for more expensive substitutes as well, if an allergic child is a participant in the program.
Whose rights take precedence again? Do these kids have the right to subject the vast majority of students, and their families, to the full weight of the intrusive financial/choice impact and the illegal searches of their bags/lockers/persons?
I feel for these kids, but I don’t think they should be the centre of the scholastic universe either.
I am not surprised there is a “toxic atmosphere,” if the few are demanding the right to search the bags of the many and to dictate what the many can and cannot eat. I would be angry too!
July 30th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
In response to Maurizio… I have to tell you that as a mother of two wonderful boys (aged 5 and 20months old). I have experienced first hand a Sever Allergic Reaction when my 20 month (who was 1 year and 1 week at the time) took a reaction to Peanuts on Dec. 18 2007. His eyes swelled his lips swelled, he caughed, he went into a daze, he got Hives from his mouth to his ears on both sides of his face, His eyes went PINK, not bloodshot, PINK, they glossed over. We had no idea he was allergic to anything, he put a piece, that was smaller than a pinky nail of his big brothers peanut butter sandwich into his mouth and spat it out. He did not even swallow it.
To see your child in this state, and be usless; to have an 911 respondant tell you to watch the child closley until the ambulance arrives, and make sure he stays concious…. I as a mother have never felt so usless, all you can do is hope, that everything is going to be OK. Meanwhile this day we had a hugh snow storm in MTL, and it took the ambulance 30min to arrive, I panicked and said to my husband that he could die… my older child over heard and cried, i dont want my baby to die…. I cried and realized i need to be under control… I cried on the phone to my mother, telling her i was scared…
So i’m sorry to tell you but NOT EVERY child with an allergy to nuts is well aware of the consequences of eating a peanut, and invariably will take precautions to avoid them, and you shouldnt think of it as penalizing everyone for someone else. It is not ludicrous. As far as growing up, I once thought the same thing as you I was a Sixteen year old that new everything. I thought Why should every one else not be allowed to eat peanut butter sandwiches, but until that Day in Decemebr, i never realized the severty of the allergic reaction. I can only wish that you never experience this first hand, i wouldnt wish this on my worst enemy.