I agree with the author completely that forbidden fruit is often the most desirable. Also, 'maxamust' has a point: We have to teach kids to eat healthy and make wise choices. There's a difference between a child who eats a cupcake and knows their sweets-intake limit, and one who buys three cupcakes as "lunch." We need to educate people, not take away something that they'll just find elsewhere.

It's funny that before a few pioneers were willing to stand in front of the mob, everybody smoked in this country. When I was in the Army, it was almost a requirement. There were ashtrays EVERywhere! Even in the hallways at hospitals. People didn't just smoke in restaurants, they smoked WHILE they were eating.
Then a few people said this is affecting ALL of us. We have to breathe this air too and your *^%$ing it up. STOP!
Now the anti-smoking laws are tougher than the drunk driving laws.
This obesity epidemic is affecting ALL of us. Get that! Those of us who can walk 500 yards and touch our toes will have to take care of all the fatties who can't keep their hands off of all the crap the food industry is pushing.
Passing laws to control smoking has worked, why do people see this as any different?

Oh Americans. We couldn't handle the responsibility, so we got it taken away from us. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

While this ban seems like a good idea, there are better ones, like teaching kids how to eat healthy. If we use the same line of reasoning the us liberals use for sex education, we should present children with a vast array of food, and educate them on healthy eating practices, so that they can make the right decisions. There's nothing wrong with a cupcake or oral sex every now and then. However, one needs to restrain themselves more in concerns to food. Sex is can be a dangerous sport, but it doesn't cause heart disease or obesity.

cupcakes... must... have... cupcakes...

These laws only make it possible for teachers to capitalize on the ban by having secret candy and soda sales from their classrooms for their personal profit. Trust me, I know...

These restrictions won't stop anything. Kids do not become obese from eating a cupcakes at school. Kids are more obese nowadays because their parents allow them to have Starbucks and McDonalds.

Genetics is amazing. My sister and I were raised in the same household, on the same diet, and we've always had the complete opposite of bodies. She's always been large, I've always been lean. There's not a cupcake in the world that made a difference in that.

I can't imagine that beautiful little cupcake could hurt anyone. Besides, why can't people just learn a little self control. Everything in moderation.

what ever happened to protecting the pursuit of happiness?! cupcake = happiness

Well, personally I love a cupcake. Especially when it is homemade from a boxed mix with some frosting and small sugary sprinkles and it comes in a nice Tupperware made especially for about a dozen cupcakes. And being an elementary art teacher, I love when a child is having a birthday and brings in some homemade cupcakes. But unfortunately, we can't do that anymore because kids (and us adults) are growing by each school bell. I guess it would make too much sense to fund physical education curriculum or things like art education. Cut P.E. hours and teachers and ban cupcakes...that otta do it!

I don't like how the government feels like they have the right to tell us how we eat, instead of telling us how we should eat.

Just like any crack head, a fat kid will find a way to get his "fix".

the title of this story is brilliant!

when i was little there were some fat kids & some skinny kids & the government didn't try to pretend that it had the best interests of the fat kids in mind by outlawing bad fatty & sugary foods. all of the tiny intrusions into our personal lives make the population more & more comfortable with surrendering their freedoms & shirking personal responsibility.
if you don't want to have diabetes & heart disease its your responsibility to eat well & exercise. i wholeheartedly understand that this can be very difficult when you are poor & live in a city, but the government has no place deciding how much of which foods we can consume.

little by little we give up all of our cognitive liberties & being told what to do by the government in every facet of our daily lives becomes the status quo.

the devil is in the details. watch out for the baby steps.

oh i totally agree with you. i, myself, is against universal healthcare. one's sickness is their own problem. they did their damage to themselves, and no one should not pay for their hospitalization except their insurance or themselves. if i sounded like i am favor of universal healthcare, im sorry. im just making points why i think they ban sweet foods in cafeteria.

Please don't get me wrong I still think the U.S. is the best country to live in. I just think that that the government want to tell us too much how to live. Example: So what if I like sweets and so what if someone is overwaight or not at the standard the U.S. has, That is that persons problem it should not be for the government to decide.

that is true. if universal healthcare is approved, sooner or later our lifestyle will be controlled by the government. looking like a free trade, democratic country with a little twist of communism right there. but i believe no one will let that happen.

one day we will all wake up and think we are in another country. Indeed universal healthcare is coming and we will not have a say about anything concerning our lives as we know it now.

i believe they made this law in preparation of universal healthcare. the government could not afford everyone sick in the future, since they will be the ones to pay for hospitalization, and raise outrageous amount of taxes to pay for half of our population's uncurable sickness. prevention is better than cure.

gone are the school days when government did not get involved in such things as school bake sales. Doesn't the government have something better to do? I don't think their doing a good job in running the U.S., and they want to tell me how to eat? what a joke.

this absurd law "exposes all to an inconvenience because there are some by whom the facility would be abused, but is suited only to a state of society in which the laboring classes are avowedly treated as children or savages, and placed under an education of restraint, to fit them for future admission to the privileges of freedom." -John Stuart Mill.

It's frustrating to see how, in recent times, our government increasingly concerns itself with parenting the working class, while letting white collar criminals and shady wall street dealers send this country off a cliff . Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

Come on, hook a brother up with a cupcake. I'm jonesin

Is this really beneficial? I understand the intension, but how practical is it?

I never ate one meal in the cafeteria when I was in high school.

Before transportation I hoofed it to 7/11 for nachos and a snapple. Then after it was either Taco Bell or McDonald's.

Luckily I grew out of my straight crap diet.

I think it's time people appreciate the overall urgency of the obesity epidemic. Americans are in danger, children are in danger of increased health risks and the fact that people want to condemn law makers for taking the steps they were unwillingly to take is ludicrous. I don't think selling unhealthy items to raise funds is an acceptable means of revenue building. I'm sure there are some corporate giants that disagree with me but we're talking about health here and allow kids to eat terribly to benefit a good cause is extremely problematic. With that rationale Oreo might as well start throwing a percentage to a charity and then we could all justify chowing down on their transfat laden crap that most parents are happy to stuff down their kids throats.

Those things really are addictive. Don't even think about leaving me alone with a carton of those. I feel so terrible about it afterward, too. Doesn't stop me from doing it again.

pack a lunch then.

so the school has a limit of what it can sell, does the school have jurisdiction over fundraisers associated with that school and what they sell?

I am all for schools selling healthy stuff to kids, but if kids pack a lunch that is unhealthy or buy something not-so-healthy *such as from a bakesale as mentioned in the article* but for a good cause ---let them eat it!

edit- a bake sale is not an everyday lunch event special, which must be clear. You cannot and shouldn't be forbidden to eat what you bring to school in a lunchbox. The school shouldn't endorse unhealthy diets by selling unhealthy foods. Bake sales are an exception because they are NOT all the time and they are for a cause.

Oh shit, I need my fix now xP

An active lifestyle os the best formula for good health. That cupcake looks pretty good.