Healthier School Lunches: Problem or Solution? Nowadays, School lunch is anything but appetizing. After the introduction of Michelle Obama’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, school lunches are now smaller, healthier, and more expensive than ever before. Schools across the country have been forced to provide healthier lunches to their students, but it seems there are more disadvantages than advantages to this plan. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was first introduced in January of 2010, more than five years ago. Michelle Obama’s aim with this program was to provide a solution to end childhood obesity, and therefore, the act was born (Obama, letsmove.org). This act limits the amount of fat, sugar, and sodium in school lunches across the country, not including private schools, such as the one her daughters attend. The amount of fruits, vegetables, and whole grain products in school lunches have been increased, and because of this, students have compared the new school lunch menu to a Weight-Watchers recipe guide. The new and improved school lunches now typically include a cup of fruit, a cup of vegetables, two ounces of of grain, two ounces of meat, and a cup of milk (Beisser, everydaynutritionalbalance.com). Students around the country were in favor of the idea of schools serving healthier school lunches, but what they have received is far from what they expected (Gonchar, nytimes.com). School lunch had changed so drastically in such little time, that students began refusing to buy school lunch altogether. In the first year of the new law, a little over one million students refused to continue purchasing the new and improved lunches. This is, of course, after participation in buying school lunch had increased steadily for almost an entire decade (Gonchar, nytimes.com). Today, however, the USDA, otherwise known as the United States Department of Agriculture, has stated that “nationwide student participation has decreased by over one million students per day”(Harrington, washingtonpost.com). Pillager teacher and coach, Jason Borgstrom has stated that “School lunches aren’t even healthy, it’s just tinier versions of what students used to get in order to make it seem healthier.” Instead of eating school lunch, which sometimes includes mold, human hair, and dangerously undercooked meat, or what appears to be meat, many students just eat at local restaurants, fast-food franchises or resort to the vending machines for their lunch, which may taste better but isn’t any better for them health-wise (Holley, washingtonpost.com). Students who do eat school lunch are usually very unsatisfied with the result and have resorted to Twitter to complain about the school food using the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama and posting pictures of their practically inedible school lunches (Ferdman, washingtonpost.com).
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Believe it or not, students have even resorted to starting food fights as an act of rebelling against the program. Not only that, but they have even began calling the act the “Hunger, Healthy-Free Kids Act.” The reason for this? Schools are being forced to serve 800 calorie lunches to high school students (Beisser, everydaynutritionalbalance.com). For a sedentary female student, the calories needed to function properly are between 1700 and 1800. For an active female student, the calorie need is from 2800 to 3000. And for male students, both active and sedentary, the calorie need is nearly twice the size. Middle school and elementary students are receiving 750 calorie lunches. That means they are receiving only 50 less calories than a grown teenager. Last time I checked, there was a huge difference between how much an elementary student should eat, and how much a high school student should eat. A 50 calorie difference just isn’t going to cut it. Let’s also not forget about the students whose only meal every day comes from the school cafeteria. Those students have pointed out that the lunch served by schools before the new act was introduced was big enough to fill up their little tummies, but now, those students are going home every day starving. Point is; none of the students are getting nearly the amount of calories they should be. Not only are students upset with the new law, but parents are now beginning to get irritated with it. One of the most popular boycotting techniques students have used
Believe it or not, students have even resorted to starting food fights as an act of rebelling against the program. Not only that, but they have even began calling the act the “Hunger, Healthy-Free Kids Act.” The reason for this? Schools are being forced to serve 800 calorie lunches to high school students (Beisser, everydaynutritionalbalance.com). For a sedentary female student, the calories needed to function properly are between 1700 and 1800. For an active female student, the calorie need is from 2800 to 3000. And for male students, both active and sedentary, the calorie need is nearly twice the size. Middle school and elementary students are receiving 750 calorie lunches. That means they are receiving only 50 less calories than a grown teenager. Last time I checked, there was a huge difference between how much an elementary student should eat, and how much a high school student should eat. A 50 calorie difference just isn’t going to cut it. Let’s also not forget about the students whose only meal every day comes from the school cafeteria. Those students have pointed out that the lunch served by schools before the new act was introduced was big enough to fill up their little tummies, but now, those students are going home every day starving. Point is; none of the students are getting nearly the amount of calories they should be. Not only are students upset with the new law, but parents are now beginning to get irritated with it. One of the most popular boycotting techniques students have used