If depriving schoolchildren 100 years ago grew out of the social Darwinist view that suffering and want build character, the current, equally ridiculous system owes much to poor eating habits at home, and to the philosophy that children must above all be enabled as autonomous decisionmakers from the day they take their first step. Parents these days feel an almost crippling need not to overstep—they must guide children’s choices, rather than intervene and make those choices on the children’s behalf. Poppendieck describes her consternation at seeing cafeteria workers catering to a child’s every impulsive demand, rather than, as in her day, intervening when Junior tries to substitute an extra brownie for his broccoli.