5 things: British school searching bags for “unhealthy” food

Each Friday I compile a list that highlights five things you probably missed in the news that week and why you should care about them.

Here’s your list for the week of Dec. Jan. 15:

1. British school searching bags for “unhealthy” food

Student bags at the Charles Dickens School in England are now being searched daily for so-called unhealthy food and beverage items like energy drinks, which are then confiscated and not returned. "We had noticed a deterioration in concentrations, learning and behaviour particularly from students bringing into school large multi-packs of unhealthy food, snacks and drinks," said the school in justifying the policy. That led to the daily bag checks, which some parents say is overstepping.

Read more: Pupils' school bags searched for unhealthy food

2. Boston College students can have meals delivered

Students at Boston College can now have their food from dining locations delivered to them, wherever they are on campus. Students can also use their dining dollars and meal plans to purchase those meals and pay the delivery fee associated with the service. The service is provided through an app called BC GET, which was developed by students and was then expanded to include a partnership with dining services.

Read more: Student-Run On-Campus Delivery Service to Launch Next Week

3. Stanford workers asked to remove protest stickers

Issues between unions and universities are not new. Late last year, union workers at Stanford signed a petition that asked dining services to address “chronic understaffing” and “unacceptable workloads.” Dining services says the complaints are “one-sided” and inaccurate, according to an article in the Stanford Daily. That led to last week’s protest in which union workers wore stickers with the message “Respect and a Fair Workload,” and managers asked the union workers to remove the stickers. Linda Usoz, director of employee and labor relations for the university, told the paper the workers were asked to remove the stickers because they violated the union’s collective bargaining agreement, which says union members cannot wear “insignia [with] any message that is vulgar, profane, or disparaging of Stanford, or that results in conflict or disruption in the workplace.”

Read more: Dining workers asked to remove stickers worn in protest of job conditions

4. Hospital gets into after-school feeding program

Some hospitals are starting programs to feed children, often through the USDA’s summer feeding program, which allows them to serve all children 18 and under a free meal and be reimbursed. McDowell Hospital in North Carolina is now partnering with the local YMCA to provide meals for its after-school program. The hospital is reimbursed through the USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program. The meals must meet certain USDA nutritional requirements, but the two institutions hope the meals will help combat food insecurity in the area.

Read more: McDowell Hospital partners with YMCA for after-school meals 

5. Missouri slows down on composting

Composting at the University of Missouri is slowing down, in part because dining services doesn’t have the resources to collect it, according to an article in the Beloit Daily News. When the composting program took off in 2011, dining services sent between 1.5 and 2 tons of waste collected weekly to the Bradford Research Center on campus for composting. That number, however, has declined significantly, by somewhere between 20 and 40 percent. Dining services says that there are now fewer people available to collect the material for composting due to budget reasons.

Read more: MU curbs composting, recycling efforts

Bonus: Meal kits boost off-campus dinner sales at UMass

Contact Becky Schilling at [email protected].
Follow her on Twitter: @bschilling_FM