For years, school lunches have been a “mixed bag” of offerings, all seemingly good, wholesome options to keep children energized throughout the school day, but all the while shortchanging them in terms of nutrition.
As time has passed, however, educational professionals have gained crucial knowledge about proper nutrition for the children they support – likely through more transparent communications around research findings, leading to new guidance – and passed that information along to parents and loved ones. In fact, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) in place for 2020-2025 is calling for lunches to have less sugar and salt, and the implementation of more whole grains. With this, we’ve witnessed some changes in what is provided in school lunches, significant improvements from those in the past.
However, revenue has a way of sneaking into even the most well-intentioned plans, and in this case, at the detriment to the health of school children.
Current nutritional landscape
According to TuftsNow, 1 in 4 school meals are of poor nutritional quality. Public schools are the biggest culprits, menus laden with overprocessing at its worst, containing chicken nuggets, pizza and more, and the attempt at vegetables often comes in the form of iceberg lettuce. More concerning is the fact that the standards in place to food prep and content falls short of minimums imposed upon fast food restaurants.
Let that sink in for a moment.
TuftsNow also explains that if schools could adjust their approach to lunches, there could be substantial health benefits for children now and well into the future – including notable savings in future medical costs. Interesting research in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition highlighted a study that was conducted around nutrition, u5iliaint a simulation model to estimate the results of three changes to the school meal program. These included reducing the percent of energy from added sugar to lower than 10% of total energy per meal, as well as requiring all grains to be whole grains. There was also a lowering of sodium content to the Chronic Disease Risk Reduction amount in the aforementioned 2020-2025 DGA.
The results showed that the school meal nutrition standards on added sugars, sodium, and whole grains aligned with the DGA recommendations could improve diet, childhood health, and reduce the potential for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and associated economic costs in the future.
Unfortunately, due to tight budgets, schools often opt for low-quality foods, as opposed to fresh produce, proteins and whole grains, that are rife with ultra-processed foods high in preservatives.
Families, meet Big Food
Big Food, as it is often referred to in the industry, is a group of the most powerful food manufacturers, processors, retailers, and agricultural producers. According to Kappan, for years, companies under the Big Food umbrella have spent millions of dollars lobbying the government to weaken or change its nutritional standards – resulting in substantial revenue gains. A great example of this is when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave into the pressure of Big Food and made access to items like French fries in school lunches easier. A few years later, Big Food further pressured the USDA to relax its restrictions on the amount of sodium and refined grains in school lunches, and the USDA complied.
Unfortunately, schools that take part in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) find it very challenging to dig themselves out from under Big Food, facing the common argument that school cafeterias are not classrooms, and therefore should not receive state and local tax dollars. There is also the continued discussion around who should be responsible for feeding children during school: If children are, by law, required to attend school, shouldn’t these schools provide them with lunches?
Disturbing issue around meat
There is a serious issue around “meat” in today’s school lunches. Despite the USDA’s guidelines, children are being subjected to meat that comes from old birds, as found in an investigation by USA Today. Even KFC and the Campbell’s refused to buy such meat because of its serious issues with quality.
In further information from USA Today, last year nearly 27,000 schools failed to have their prep areas inspected. What’s more, around 8,500 school kitchens were not inspected, with only around 18,000 inspected once instead of twice. It’s unfortunately not surprising, then, when a student in North Carolina was rushed to the emergency room after drinking salmonella-infected sweet tea from the cafeteria. In another case, almost 30 elementary school students in Pennsylvania reported serious stomach issues after eating undercooked chicken.
A brighter, more nutritious future
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however. Various farm-to-school programs led by schools across the nation have come together in support of scratch cooking, essentially preparing food from scratch using fresh ingredients, for use in school lunches. A 2015 census showed that schools moving in that direction were able to redirect nearly $790 million of public funding away from Big Food into community food and farm businesses.
It’s important to note that those in the education profession are true advocates of children’s health and development, and do not have a hand in what can be expected in the lunch line. However, it is their duty to provide feedback on what they see, as well as to communicate to children the importance of getting all the vitamins and minerals needed for them to thrive. This kind of communication is also important to guardians – perhaps it will come down to children bringing their lunch to school (when possible, considering the issue of food insecurity).
With continued efforts towards change, reinforcing the need for real nutrition while also rallying around policy transformation and fund allocation to ultimately modify the revenue structure, it is possible one day for us to escape the dangerous grip of Big Food.
