Government Run School Lunches We all remember that day when President Obama took office, and our school lunches changed forever. First Lady Michelle Obama, felt that too many American kids are overweight, so she thought she needed to make our school lunches healthier, with more fruits and vegetables. One of the major changes she made was how many calories the school cooks were able to give the kids. The new requirements are as follows: up to 650 for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, 700 for sixth through eighth graders and 850 for high scholars. These numbers are consistent with the Mayo Clinic’s recommendations ( Kuczynski-Brown). The main goal of cutting calories and taking away junk food, was to insure that kids are getting served a healthy lunch. At each lunch, schools must still provide a cup of fruit, a cup of vegetables, two servings of grains, two ounces of dairy, and a cup of fluid milk, so that students can get their needed vitamins and nutrients (Anonymous) . They are also wanting more local farmers to be involved, and give more of the food they grow to the school. At the high school I went to, we built a green house, and …show more content…
People get to eat more green food in their diet. Which in the long run can lower the number of health risks, when they get older. Most of the kids say that if you add cheese or something, it will make it better and they will want to eat it. A lot of people think that if you add something to kill the flavor of it they will eat it. They also like they are using more local food to put into their lunches. It can sometimes be cheaper if they use local food, rather than something that you have to have shipped in. You are also garneted it to be fresher also, and you know how it was grew and what chemicals was used on it. If the school builds a greenhouse and a garden it can also get more kids involved in the work that goes into making the
Janet Poppendieck is a professor of sociology at Hunter College in New York, and is the author of several books, including her most recent Free for All: Fixing School Food in America. This book centers on America’s recent interest in whether or not our school lunches are healthy. This issue has been put into the spotlight recently through shows such as Jamie Oliver’s School Food Revolution and in the news because of recent changes in the Nation School Lunch Program’s dietary guidelines. Poppendieck’s book looks at the in depth reasons why school lunches have turned into what they are today, what challenges need to be faced in order to fix school lunches, and ultimately how the system should be fixed. She accomplishes this by interviewing her current college students about their previous school lunch experiences, working in a school cafeteria, interviewing current school employees, and looking at the history and policies of the National School Lunch Program.
has to spend more money on changing school lunch system from eliminating unnecessary spending portion of system and create farming class. As reported by Cooper, “ The National School Lunch Program needs 8 billion dollars to feed 30 million children a year to serve high quality foods.” However, this price of amount has to be double to serve healthy foods to students because our next generation has to grow up with high quality foods not with low quality foods. Moreover, according to Cooper, the U.S. spends more than 100 million dollars on fast foods portion which the U.S. suppose to spend less amount of money on fast foods to improve the entire food system of the country. If the U.S. government lower the expense of fast food system and raises the amount of money for school lunches, entire schools of the U.S. would get positive results. For example, students could brainstorm very fast as Albert Einstein, and gain more energy to work out on their gym classes. Furthermore, school have to create agriculture class for students to have strong knowledges in foods. Students can literally be ware of what they eat at their lunch times; they will know vegetables grow in the ground and how foods are really fresh. Therefore, schools must provide farming class as in Berkeley; students have rights to know how foods are important to them. As a result, students could get a lot of benefits for changing school
Active kids who need more calories than the federal limits are also at risk, and may end up feeling weak, fatigued or nauseous during sports and exercise. According to a 2012 article written by registered dietitian Timi Gustafson, not getting enough essential nutrients at meals may lower kids’ IQ scores, memory capacities, fine motor skills, social skills and languages skills into early adulthood and beyond. A child’s poor dietary habits can even influence his sleep patterns, which may have an effect on cognitive behaviors and academic abilities. The results of a research review published in 2004 in the "British Journal of Nutrition," children who are micronutrient-deficient may exhibit more aggressiveness, less mental endurance and lower intelligence test scores. our school lunches are affecting our learning abilities and this is a problem that needs to be resolved
CNN Wire Staff, . "USDA recalls beef headed for Georgia school lunches." CNN. N.p., 24 Sep 2011. Web. CNN.
Government date shows that in the past thirty years, rate of being overweight in six to eleven year olds is up 19% and 6% in age 12 to 19. Without support, school lunches remain high in fat. (Finkelstien) According to the CDCP, obesity is double what it was in children and triple in adolescents since 1980. Many reforms were attempted to help this problem, but many inadvertently caused more problems. (Finkelstien) A 730 calorie lunch should have no more than 24 grams of fat and no more than 8 grams of it saturated yet the average USDA lunch has 31 grams of fat and 14 rams of it is saturated. (Yeoman) These very high levels of fat are why obesity is becoming worse in children. It can be concluded that school food is still extremely high in fat and this can be directly linked to the high rates of obesity in young children and
Allowing healthier school lunches will decrease obesity in children because it will give them the proper nutrition to reduce the risk of health issues. Since obesity causes many health issues, maintaining a proper nutrition will reduce the risk of health issues. According to Star- Telegram, a daily newspaper that serves Fort Worth and areas of North Texas states, “[School lunches that have] a meal of pizza sticks, a banana, raisins and whole milk has given way to whole wheat spaghetti with meat sauce, a whole wheat roll green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, kiwi and low-fat milk … This change will help more than 2.4 million Texas students who receive a free or reduced- price school lunch to lead healthier, more active lives—in and out of the classroom”(Par. 2 and 4). School lunches are supposed to guarantee students a well balance meal, so they can have the energy to proceed with their classes throughout the day. Meanwhile, students who receive a f...
Fruits and vegetables are now considered two separate groups, with increased servings. Since Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act went into effect School districts have been struggled to executing the program, the backlash from students was almost immediate children began throwing away most of their lunch.”The School Nutrition Association said that 70 percent of school meal programs had taken a significant financial hit since the new mandates went into effect. Cafeteria operators from Los Angeles to New York report discouraging amounts of food waste and declining
"National School Lunch Act." Poverty and the Government in America: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009. Credo Reference. Web. 21 January 2014.
The intake of proper nutrients helps balance the maintenance of bodily functions; supporting the longevity of a healthy lifestyle. (Denton, Carolyn. “How does food Impact Health?” www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu). With constant technological advance in the world, it is important to become aware of how frequent the world changes daily in preparation for self-maturity. What is a more effective way to approach the real world than to have a direct experience? The researcher will address the topic on why community high schools in America should allow its students off campus during lunch. Allowing children to have a better lunch option could help educational strength as well as attend to other essential needs. (Anderson, Melinda. “Do healthy lunches
Unfortunately, in today’s society, school administrators focus heavily on standardized test scores and school rankings thus adding more pressure on students and teachers. This being said, schools have begun to focus on providing healthy foods because they help increase a person’s cognitive and critical thinking ability. It is seen that nutrition plays a great role in students’ performance on exams and physical activity due to the correlation between school provided meals and low student
On January 18, 2012 the Obama administration announced a new set of changes to pile on top of the older rules that had already been set in action. Older constraints on the lunches had been put in earlier, but the new ones cut down the so deemed ‘unhealthy’ food even more and was replace with more ‘wholesome’ choices. The last set of rules supplemented more fruits and vegetables to the school meals and decreased the amount of fat and salt (Nixon, 1). As mentioned earlier, the new rules were a considerable amount of Mrs. Obama’s fight to lower the number of overweight children in America through better nutrition and exercise (Nixon, 5). The goal was to force the students to be healthier by providing only...
Obama has new standards for childhood obesity. The new standards are important because kids get most of their nutrition from meals eaten at school. Mrs. Obama said “I’m going to fight until the bitter end to make sure that every kid in this country continues to have the best nutrition that they can have in our schools, because these kids, all of these kids are worth it”. The new standards are now working in schools. A statement was made at a meeting with the USDA stating that “combined with the improvements in school lunches that the schools began implementing this school year, at long last, all foods and beverages sold in schools will need to meet healthy nutrition standards.
Lunch is one of the most important meals of the day and is consumed mostly in school cafeterias for children and adolescence. Wholesome lunches are vital in maintaining a healthy metabolism and give children energy for the rest of the school day. Children are advised to eat healthily but do not always do so because the choices of tastier, fatty foods offered in school cafeterias. The National School Lunch Program, NSLP, which is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools set nutritious guidelines for lunches served in school cafeterias (USDA). However, school campuses still offer foods high in fat as well as selling candy, chips, and soda in their vending machines, as well as their school shops. In order
Active teens require 2000-5000 calories a day(Kids Health). The healthy choices may be available but, are kids really eating the food? According to the statistics on waste, the answer to this question is”No”. The Healthy Kids Hunger-Free Act originated in 2010, new updated guidelines implemented in 2012 include the following: increase amounts of fruits and vegetables, calorie limits according to age group, reduction in fats and sodium. All schools were required to implement the changes in 2012-2013. One of the changes implemented because of the enormous amount of waste was “offer versus serve”. In the updated guidelines, this was another requirement. The term “offer versus serve” was coined to reduce waste: students can decline some of the food offered that they do not intend to eat (USDA Food and Nutrition Service n.p.). This confirms the fact that students were not eating the healthy choices that were being served. As a result the calorie intake for a student was now a health risk since they are not getting enough to support their growing bodies. Another point to be seen with the caloric guidelines and putting a cap on the caloric intake of a child is that these figures do not consider and athlete; who needs double or triple the caloric intake to support 2 hours of training in the morning and 2-3 hours after school, or the
Only a banana, half an apple , half cup strawberries meet the average consumption of the fruit of children per day.