In an era of concern over childhood obesity, school lunches are coming under increased scrutiny for their nutritional content, or lack thereof. Three-quarters of the nation’s school-age children eat their lunches from a school lunch program and consume a third of their daily calories at this meal. This makes a nutritionally balanced lunch a necessity when it comes to maintaining healthy weight in children.
What are the standards for school lunches, and who sets these policies? Can healthier school lunches ultimately impact childhood obesity rates?
Over the last twenty years childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed from 6.5% to 19.6% among 6-11 year olds. This epidemic has gotten so bad even the president has spoken up about the need to stem the problem and First Lady Michelle Obama has made it her goal to “eliminate this problem of childhood obesity in a generation.” Her focus has been on eating a diet of fresh fruits of vegetables and increasing daily exercise. Lately, she has been turning her focus to improving the quality and standards of school lunch programs.
This rise is not entirely the fault of the school lunch program. We live in an obesogenic society; it is characterized by many factors that make a slide into obesity relatively effortless. Fast food restaurants and drive-thrus practically bring junk food to you; videogames, the internet and cable television have made many lives mostly sedentary; and an increasing reliance on a white collar workforce have taken the physicality out of earning a day’s wages. With many easy ways to live an unhealthy lifestyle, how can one meal a day make a difference?
First it is important to identify the problems that exist with this one meal today. The standards for school lunches today were implemented in 1995 before the real impact of expanding waistlines had been fully felt. These standards also assume that it is one of three meals a child eats daily, when in reality many children get 50% of their daily nutritional intake from the lunch they eat at school. Children need high-calories and the nutrient-dense standards set in 1995 call for a third of the daily recommended value of key vitamins in minerals as well as require that the calories come from no more than 30% fat. Schools rarely hit these marks.
These standards are nice, as well as the money Congress allocates for school lunch programs. The problem is that in the real world, $2.40 a child is hardly enough to cover food, let alone pay for equipment and staff. Schools typically contract out the cafeteria work to the lowest bidder. This means that not only do these outside companies need to make lunches at $2.40 a student, they need to also make a profit.
Congress is working on changing the standards for school lunches. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 just passed the Senate and is working its way through the House. It raises health and nutritional standards for cafeterias and lunches, as well as raise the reimbursement amount for the individual schools. This is a step in the right direction, but with the prices of fresh fruits and vegetables so high compared to poor quality meats, cheeses and grains the lunches will never be that healthy at these low prices.
School lunches can be seen as a microcosm for the larger health problems of society; subsidization of sugar, corn and beef has made the unhealthiest corners of the Food Pyramid the most inexpensive. By making the cornerstone of many children’s diets some of least healthy dietary options available, society is training them for a lifetime of unhealthy eating habits. These are the formative years for the nation’s future; it is imperative we give them the best start possible.
Posted by Becky on May 17, 2010 at 4:20pm.
