I read the Salty School Lunch editorial and was shocked. I was a child of the 1950s and '60s, and if you look at class photos of elementary students from my era, it's rare to find overweight kids. Our lunches were packed with carbs, fats and sugar. Schools got a lot of their foods through the government surplus food program that provided them with a lot of high calorie foods, and kitchen staff prepared meals on site. Why weren't we all obese?

A quick map check showed that in elementary school I walked almost a half mile each way. In middle school it was nearly 1.5 miles. No door-to-door bus service. We didn't have electronic games/computers so we were forced to actually go outside to play. We walked most places, even to the store a whole three blocks away. At school we had long playground breaks after lunch and three times a week we had gym class. We didn't blame the federal, state or local government if someone got fat.

In recent years I have read about kids tossing out much of their 'healthy' school lunches. I have read articles about the “food police” taking home-packed lunches away from kids.

In many areas we have eliminated neighborhood schools, reduced playground time and dropped gym. Perhaps we should rethink that. Get rid of the food police.