RALEIGH – Critics and supporters of child nutrition rules requiring pre-kindergarten and child care workers to supplement food lunchboxes brought from home gave a state agency an earful on Tuesday.

“We do not need food police looking at the food that children eat,” Susan Robbins of Wendell told the N.C. Child Care Commission. “We cannot afford the government to police the food that children are eating when it is sent by their parents.”

Annette Newkirk with the N.C. Child Care Coalition disagreed, saying that the rules were good and that licensed child care programs should meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines. The coalition is an advocacy organization for child care services in the state.

“This ensures that all children in a program have meals that meet the USDA standards,” Newkirk said. She said that being overweight during childhood and adolescence increases the risk of diseases.

The commission is considering adopting rules that would modify early childhood nutritional programs. The speakers were commenting on the proposed rule changes and on enforcement of existing rules across the state.

New rules were not adopted at Tuesday’s meeting. The commission is expected to take up the rules at its next meeting May 8. They include:

• Requiring children ages 2 and older to be served either skim milk or low fat milk.

• Allowing food brought from home to reflect cultural and ethnic preferences, including providing a vegetarian diet.

• Prohibiting children from being served flavored milk or sugary drinks. Those include Kool-Aid, fruit drinks, sports drinks, sweet tea, and soda. The rules provide that no more than six ounces of 100 percent fruit juice be served in one day.

• Requiring a center’s staff to be nutritional role models. Staff members would be asked to refrain from consuming foods or beverages with little or no nutritional value when in the presence of children.

• Keeping infants from being served formula in bottles prepared by staff without a prescription or written statement on file from a health care or nutritional professional.

Some of the comments were in response to recent stories, first published by Carolina Journal, highlighting an incident at a pre-kindergarten program West Hoke Elementary School in January. The state pre-kindergarten program, formerly known as More at Four, is now commonly known as Pre-K.

In the Hoke County incident, a child’s lunch brought from home – which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice — was deemed not to meet nutritional standards. The child was given a school lunch which included chicken nuggets.

Since then, there have been other press accounts of children being told that their lunches brought from home did not meet nutritional standards.

Newkirk said the media and “opportunistic bloggers” had “distorted” the Hoke County incident.

Jan Guynn, a program manager for Easter Seals, said she was concerned about a report suggesting that the life expectancy of her grandchildren’s generation would be shorter than that of her generation. She said a combination of things likely contributed to that expectation, including inactivity and poor nutrition.

“We have that ability to provide that ounce of prevention,” Guynn said, adding that the proposed nutrition standards wouldn’t cost us anything. “Sweet drinks and Gatorade cost us more than water,” she said.

But Scott Sweeney of Charlotte objected to the nutrition rules, saying they were a “direct infringement on individual rights and individual sovereignty.”

He said the General Assembly didn’t intend for nutrition rules to trump parental preference. He said the Hoke County incident became an “embarrassment for all North Carolinians.”

“I hope your commission sees the error of this decision,” Sweeney said.

Sweeney said that if the commission did adopt the new rules, he and at least nine others would formally object to them, a move which would block implementation until the General Assembly reconvenes to take a look at them.

The commission is allowing public comment on the proposed rules until April 2. Current child care regulations can be found on this website. Additional information about the proposed rules is available here (PDF).

Barry Smith is a contributor to Carolina Journal.