“Some kids have never seen what a real tomato looks like off the vine. They don't know where a cucumber comes from.” -Michelle Obama. President Barack Obama signed the Hunger-Free Kids Act for Children, in 2010. The law's main objective was to increase the minimum nutrition requirements for lunches at public schools served as part of the National School Lunch Program. “As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat, and ensure they have a reasonably balanced diet,” said First Lady Michelle Obama. “And when we’re putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria. When we send our kids to school, we expect that they won’t be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home. We want the food they get at school to be the same kind of food we would serve at our own kitchen tables.”
Secretary Tom Vilsack came to support the Obamas and their ideas by getting in touch with the USDA. The USDA has developed the current law on guidelines by a group of experts appointed by the Institute of Medicine — a basis for evidence-based health research. The requirements have also been revised with significant updates from the 2010 American Nutritional Recommendations – the Federal Government's wellness framework – and aimed at encouraging the kind of safe school improvements that many parents are still seeking to promote at home, such as ensuring that children are given daily fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, portion sizes, and calorie counts.
The final standards make the same kinds of practical changes that many parents are already encouraging at home, including:
Ensuring students are offered both fruits and vegetables every day of the week
Substantially increasing offerings of whole grain-rich foods;
Offering only fat-free or low-fat milk varieties;
Limiting calories based on the age of children being served to ensure proper portion size; and
Increasing the focus on reducing the amounts of saturated fat, trans fats, and sodium.
A sample lunch menu with a before and after comparison is available to view and download in PDF and JPG formats.
The policy’s discussion concerning the new law centered on the underlying health details for offering more nutritious school lunches, in particular, concerns over the number of children who are under the title of obese. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that one in every five children in the United States is considered to be obese. School foods have always been a big part of a child as they grow up. Brookings, a nonprofit researching public policy organization based in Washington, DC, saw that “in years when a school contracts with a healthy lunch company, students at the school score better on end-of-year academic tests. On average, student test scores are 0.03 to 0.04 standard deviations higher (about 4 percentile points). Not only that, the test score increases are about 40 percent larger for students who qualify for reduced-price or free school lunches.”
In 2011, New York Times did an experiment: “A study of more than 1,000 sixth graders in several schools in southeastern Michigan found that those who regularly had the school lunch were 29 percent more likely to be obese than those who brought lunch from home.” This then differs from their survey in 2017, after the obesity pandemic had gone down drastically, where the comments included mentions like Makena Linely who said “I would describe out school lunches as flavorless. Schools try to make the bread whole grain and the vegetables unprocessed but it just takes away the flavor. I do not think that schools serve the correct portion. Guys and girls in sports, who need a lot of energy, need the right portion of food to keep them going.” This means we have to ask ourselves: Is this change in school foods really beneficial for the US? Even though the clear rates in obesity have gone down due to the decrease in unhealthy and processed food, will kids even want to eat flavorless food, which puts them at more health risks?
I decided to survey some of my school mates in order to bring other ideas to the spectrum. Disclaimer: every one that is quoted attends the Temecula Unified School District in Temecula, California and these lunches may differ to other districts or other states’ lunch policies and supply. First, I asked my sister Nadia Ali who attended Vail Ranch Middle School when school was in session. “They are pretty gross and taste like cardboard, at least my school did. They don’t require you to get vegetables when you get a juice, which is practically sugar water and does no benefit to my or my classmate’s health. And for breakfast, I rarely see any healthy options. I am offered pancakes, cinnamon rolls, or other processed foods, which is terrible to be offering kids my age for breakfast every day.” Next, I got to ask my friend Annalise Steinman her thoughts, “I think that the program could be a little more funded since a lot of people need more access to food, especially during this time. Also, pretty much everyone I know that eats the food doesn’t enjoy the meal or cannot eat it due to restricted diets. Giving kids a slice of cheese on 2 pieces of bread isn’t a great option for everyone at the school.” I also got to have a chat with Allison Dashiell “I think generally our food is pretty good since there are variety and the option for snacks between classes since a lot of students don’t always have time to sit and eat a full lunch. One thing I would say is that w have no vegan options other than a salad, which honestly makes me not want to eat lunch as much.”
Although we have been through so much of a journey with health factors and caring for our students, this is not the end of it. School lunches impact student’s lives so much, whether being offered free lunches, or wanting to pay for a quick meal in the cafeteria. The obesity pandemic a few years ago may have been tackled by the Obama laws against healthy food, but we need to consider the idea that all students’ diets must be included in the menu in order to adhere to all the health needs of public school students. Skipping a meal or being fed flavorless food will discourage students from keeping themselves healthy and happy while at school. During times like now, I hope that we can begin the next chapters in school lunches, especially since some households don’t have the number of healthy foods to successfully feed all children outside of school. I ask that you do your research, sign a petition, and help get the ball rolling for the next chapter in school lunches.
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Written by Nazreen Ali from Temecula, California
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