Better Food For Feds

I'm broadly sympathetic to the point Helene York, writing for our sister magazine The Atlantic, is making in her post arguing that federal employees deserve much, much healthier, and even more importantly, better food in on-site dining facilities. I'm all for anything that makes federal employees happier or healthier, or that allows the federal government to model best-practices policy. But a strain of condescension in York's post really brought me up short. Apparently, she believes America has bad policy, because the food available in federal cafeterias is somehow reflective of what employees know about food, or what kind of food they like best. "How can we expect USDA employees to passionately defend needed changes if their imaginations about food options are stuck in the 1970s?" she writes. Later, she reiterates the point, saying "Most college students wouldn't put up with this. Why should public servants? They deserve better than this, especially if we need them to see the connections among fresh and healthy food, well-raised food and healthy ecosystems, their personal health and great-tasting produce."

First off, as one of York's commenters notes, the dining facilities in many federal agencies aren't run and supplied by the agencies themselves. As a result, the idea that what's served in federal cafeterias is reflective of federal employees' opinions and knowledge about food is, to a certain extent, factually inaccurate. Worse, it's incredible patronizing. It's not as if federal employees only eat food in their agencies' cafeterias. Some of them might go elsewhere for lunch. Or, you know, cook and bring their own food Suggesting otherwise implies that federal employees are dumb, or uninquisitive, which seems like a pretty odd assumption to showcase if you're going to be working on federal employee policy. And the idea that federal employees ought to act like college students and agitate over the food they're served in agencies cafeterias seems a little...reductive. Federal employees do have unions who do work on wellness issues. But they're also dealing with things like pay and work conditions, of which food and fitness facilities are a subset. They're important, but by acting as if it's shocking that food just doesn't automatically cause a revolution, York's revealing a prejudice of her own.

It's always marvelous when people outside the government or good government community take up the cause of federal employees. (And we've got our own special report on lifestyle issues for federal employees up now and continuing over the next several weeks.) But it's useless if these newly-minted advocates end up condescending to and misunderstanding the people they want to help.