bad school lunch essay

How the quality of school lunch affects students’ academic performance

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, michael l. anderson , mla michael l. anderson associate professor of agricultural and resource economics - university of california, berkeley justin gallagher , and jg justin gallagher assistant professor of economics - case western reserve university elizabeth ramirez ritchie err elizabeth ramirez ritchie ph.d. graduate student - university of california-berkeley, department of agricultural and resource economics.

May 3, 2017

In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. The main goal of the law was to raise the minimum nutritional standards for public school lunches served as part of the National School Lunch Program. The policy discussion surrounding the new law centered on the underlying health reasons for offering more nutritious school lunches, in particular, concern over the number of children who are overweight. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that one in five children in the United States is obese.

Surprisingly, the debate over the new law involved very little discussion as to whether providing a more nutritious school lunch could improve student learning. A lengthy medical literature examines the link between diet and cognitive development, and diet and cognitive function. The medical literature focuses on the biological and chemical mechanisms regarding how specific nutrients and compounds are thought to affect physical development (e.g., sight), cognition (e.g., concentration, memory), and behavior (e.g., hyperactivity). Nevertheless, what is lacking in the medical literature is direct evidence on how nutrition impacts educational achievement.

We attempt to fill this gap in a new study that measures the effect of offering healthier public school lunches on end of year academic test scores for public school students in California. The study period covers five academic years (2008-2009 to 2012-2013) and includes all public schools in the state that report test scores (about 9,700 schools, mostly elementary and middle schools). Rather than focus on changes in national nutrition standards, we instead focus on school-specific differences in lunch quality over time. Specifically, we take advantage of the fact that schools can choose to contract with private companies of varying nutritional quality to prepare the school lunches. About 12 percent of California public schools contract with a private lunch company during our study period. School employees completely prepare the meals in-house for 88 percent of the schools.

To determine the quality of different private companies, nutritionists at the Nutrition Policy Institute analyzed the school lunch menus offered by each company. The nutritional quality of the menus was scored using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI). The HEI is a continuous score ranging from zero to 100 that uses a well-established food component analysis to determine how well food offerings (or diets) match the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The HEI is the Department of Agriculture’s preferred measure of diet quality, and the agency uses it to “examine relationships between diet and health-related outcomes, and to assess the quality of food assistance packages, menus, and the US food supply.” The average HEI score for the U.S. population is 63.8, while the median HEI score in our study is 59.9. In other words, the typical private company providing public school lunch in CA is a bit less healthy than the average American diet.

We measure the relationship between having a lunch prepared by a standard (below median HEI) or healthy (above median HEI) company relative to in-house preparation by school staff. Our model estimates the effect of lunch quality on student achievement using year-to-year changes between in-house preparation of school meals and outside vendors of varying menu quality, within a given school . We control for grade, school, and year factors, as well as specific student and school characteristics including race, English learner, low family income, school budget, and student-to-teacher ratios.

We find 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. These students are also the ones who are most likely to eat the school lunches.

Moreover, we find no evidence that contracting with a private company to provide healthier meals changes the number of school lunches sold. This is important for two reasons. First, it reinforces our conclusion that the test score improvements we measure are being driven by differences in food quality, and not food quantity. A number of recent studies have shown that providing (potentially) hungry kids with greater access to food through the National School Lunch Program can lead to improved test scores. We are among the very few studies to focus on quality, rather than food quantity (i.e., calories). Second, some critics of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act worried that by raising the nutritional standards of school lunches that fewer children would eat the food, thereby unintentionally harming the students that the law was designed to help. Our results provide some reassurance that this is not likely to be the case.

Finally, we also examine whether healthier school lunches lead to a reduction in the number of overweight students. We follow previous literature and use whether a student’s body composition (i.e. body fat) is measured to be outside the healthy zone on the Presidential Fitness Test . We find no evidence that having a healthier school lunch reduces the number of overweight students. There are a few possible interpretations of this finding, including that a longer time period may be necessary to observe improvements in health, the measure of overweight is too imprecise, or that students are eating the same amount of calories due to National School Lunch Program calorie meal targets.

Education researchers have emphasized the need and opportunity for cost-effective education policies . While the test score improvements are modest in size, providing healthier school lunches is potentially a very cost-effective way for a school to improve student learning. Using actual meal contract bid information we estimate that it costs approximately an additional $80 per student per year to contract with one of the healthy school lunch providers relative to preparing the meals completely in-house.

While this may seem expensive at first, compare the cost-effectiveness of our estimated test score changes with other policies. A common benchmark is the Tennessee Star experiment , which found a large reduction in the class size of grades K-3 by one-third correlated with a 0.22 standard deviation test score increase. This reduction cost over $2,000 when the study was published in 1999, and would be even more today. It is (rightfully) expensive to hire more teachers, but scaling this benefit-cost ratio to achieve a bump in student learning gains equal to our estimates, we find class-size increases would be at least five times more expensive than healthier lunches.

Thus, increasing the nutritional quality of school meals appears to be a promising, cost-effective way to improve student learning. The value of providing healthier public school lunches is true even without accounting for the potential short- and long-term health benefits, such as a reduction in childhood obesity and the development of healthier lifelong eating habits. Our results cast doubt on the wisdom of the recently announced proposal by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to roll back some of the school lunch health requirements implemented as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

Related Content

Krista Ruffini

February 11, 2021

Lauren Bauer, Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

April 29, 2016

Michele Leardo

August 29, 2016

Education Access & Equity K-12 Education

Governance Studies

Brown Center on Education Policy

Michael Trucano, Sopiko Beriashvili

September 20, 2024

Megan Kuhfeld, Karyn Lewis

Sweta Shah, Juanita Morales

• Our Mission
• Plant-Based Coaching Certification
• WHOLE Life Club
• Plant-Powered & Thriving
• Healthy Heart
• Healthy Brain
• Tackling Type 2
• 14-Day Accelerator
• Contact/FAQ

Why School Lunches in America Are Unhealthy and 10 Ways You Can Take Action to Improve Them

We all have a stake in making school lunches healthier. Learn what you can do…

Debates about school lunch have been going on for more than a century. Learn why school lunches in America have a terrible reputation and how you can help make a difference.

School lunch matters — for better learning and academic performance, for improved behavior and performance at school, for the overall health of kids, and much more.

In fact, school meals can have tremendous impacts on the next generation, the future of a country, and maybe even the future of our world .

The State of School Lunches In America

In the U.S., school lunches have a terrible reputation.

A 2009 investigation by USA Today found that meat served in U.S. schools wouldn’t meet the quality or safety standards of fast-food restaurants. And according to the book Lunch Lessons , almost half the vegetables eaten by most children aged 2 to 19 in the U.S. were French fries.

Although America’s school lunches have improved since Congress strengthened the standards for the national school lunch program in 2010, they have a long way to go.

Most menus now include more whole grains and more fruit and vegetable options and less salt. But they also offer an abundance of factory-farmed animal products and heavily processed foods, like corn dogs, tater tots, and cheese pizza.

But School Lunches Can Improve

Programs exist to help improve food at schools, and some schools are taking bold, inspiring steps. Parents, educators, students, and everyone can take action to help students have access to healthier foods.

As Ocean Robbins says in his upcoming book 31-Day Food Revolution , “ As long as tens of millions of families depend on school meals for a fundamental part of daily nutrition, we all have a stake in making them healthier. ”

As long as tens of millions of families depend on school meals for a fundamental part of daily nutrition, we all have a stake in making them healthier. Ocean Robbins

Why Are School Lunches in America Unhealthy?

Many countries around the world serve school lunch for students. In America, midday meals have been a fixture in education for more than 70 years.

A variety of factors contribute to the school lunches in the U.S. today. Here are some of them:

The National School Lunch Program provides low-cost or free school lunches to 31 million students at more than 100,000 public and private schools per day. Meals must meet nutritional standards based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Participating schools receive approximately $1.30 to spend for each child. This amount must cover the food, as well as any labor, equipment, electricity, and other costs. School food programs also depend on income from students who often pay for the food they eat.

Tight budgets make serving healthier foods challenging .

The USDA Foods Program

The United States Department of Agriculture purchases hundreds of millions of dollars worth of agricultural products and gives them to schools for free. (The government does this to stabilize food prices and to ensure demand for the country’s agricultural goods.)

Free food may sound good, especially when funding is so limited. But in 2015 , 64% of the program’s spending went to meat , dairy , and egg products . Virtually all these products came from factory farms.

The School Milk Program

Why does almost every school lunch include milk? Because milk in schools has been federally subsidized since 1940 .

In the 2013-14 school year, more than $20 million taxpayer dollars were spent directly by the USDA on dairy product subsidies that went into child nutrition programs, including school lunch.

Even though most schools now ban sodas and other sugary beverages, chocolate milk still gets a pass . A single serving of chocolate milk contains between four and six teaspoons of sugar.

And there are many reasons why all this milk might not be the healthiest option for our kids.

Unhealthy School Vendors

Some schools have given contracts to food management companies to manage the food offered to students. In these cases, the companies have the purchasing power — not the schools.

The contracting most often goes to one of three main corporations: Aramark, Compass Group, and Sodexo. These companies are in business to make money, and it seems that children’s health isn’t always their top priority.

Why the Quality of School Lunches Matters for Students

Children consume up to 50% of their daily calories at school. And for low-income children, lunch may be the only real meal of the day.

Here are seven reasons to feed kids healthy, well-balanced meals:

1) Better Learning and Memory

As studies show, children who are hungry or undernourished are unable to focus and have a hard time learning .

According to a 2008 study published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience , diets with high levels of saturated fats may impair learning and memory . Many foods commonly served during school lunch, such as French fries, cheeseburgers, and chicken nuggets, are loaded with saturated fat.

When kids get adequate nutrition, they are sick fewer days and don’t need to miss school, which can lead to improved performance.

A 2011 study published in the Journal of Health Economics showed that when Greenwich switched from low-budget processed meals towards healthier options, educational outcomes improved and authorized absences fell by 14% .

2) Improved Concentration

Deficiencies in vitamins and minerals are shown to diminish cognitive abilities and mental concentration . Many school lunches are low in the fruits, vegetables, and whole foods that provide an abundance of vitamins and minerals.

3) Better Overall Health

A 2008 study published in the Journal of School Health found that effective school nutrition programs “have the potential to improve student’s diet quality, academic performance, and, over the long term, their health .”

4) Better Behavior and Fewer Problems

A series of studies in the 1980s removed chemical additives and processed food, and reduced levels of sugar, in the diets of more than 8,000 juvenile delinquents in 12 correctional facilities.

What was the result? Problem behaviors fell 47% .

Similarly, in Virginia, 300 particularly hardened juvenile delinquents were put on a diet with no chemical additives and little sugar for two years. During that time, incidences of theft fell 77%, insubordination dropped 55%, and hyperactivity went down by 65% .

Also, in 2008, a comprehensive analysis from the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that students with access to nutritious meals had lower rates of aggression and disciplinary problems .

5) Better Academic Performance

According to a study conducted at the University of California at Berkeley, students who eat healthier school lunches achieve higher standardized test scores .

And a 2008 study published in the Journal of School Health found an association between higher quality diets and better performance on exams .

6) Reducing Obesity

Obesity rates among children nearly tripled from 1970 to 2000. And according to a 2017 projection published in The New England Journal of Medicine , most 2-year-olds in America today will develop obesity by the time they turn 35 . But could school lunches help reduce obesity?

A 2013 study published in JAMA Pediatrics showed that children residing in states with stringent nutritional standards for school meals had lower rates of obesity than those states with more lax regulations.

And a 2018 nationwide study conducted in Japan and published in the Journal of Public Health concluded that “Appropriate nutritional intake through school lunch may be effective to reduce childhood obesity.” (Japan has a relatively low childhood obesity rate and one of the world’s most successful nationwide school lunch programs.)

7) Better Habits for the Future

Researchers say that the eating patterns kids develop early in life typically follow them into adulthood.

A group of Canadian researchers said: “ If children are to learn to prefer and select healthy foods, they need early, positive, repeated experiences with those foods. ”

Federal Changes to Make American School Lunches Healthier

In 2010, Congress adopted the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act — the first significant change to school meal nutrition in more than 15 years .

If children are to learn to prefer and select healthy foods, they need early, positive, repeated experiences with those foods.

The standards went into effect in 2012, with schools that met the new criteria receiving additional funding. And federal funding for school lunches increased — by about six cents per meal — for the first time in more than three decades.

Schools are now required to:

• Offer fruit daily at breakfast and lunch
• Offer vegetables daily at lunch
• Increase the amount of whole grains
• Require students to select either a fruit or vegetable with each meal
• Reduce the sodium content of meals
• Only offer fat-free or low-fat milk varieties
• Create grade-specific limits on total calories
• Remove trans fats

Researchers who examined 1.7 million meals in an urban Washington State school district found that the overall nutritional quality of meals increased by 29% after the standards took effect .

Problems Faced by School Lunch Programs

But despite these improvements, many nutritional experts still find school lunches to be inadequate. Most meals aren’t prepared from scratch and don’t use fresh fruits and vegetables . Instead, foods are frozen or made elsewhere and then heated before serving. This food preparation creates meals that are far from fresh and, sadly, unappealing.

And the new federal administration is scaling back the updated school meal nutrition requirements, which could lead to less nutritious foods in many schools.

10 Ways You Can Help Improve School Food

Even though it can feel daunting to get involved, simple steps can have meaningful impacts on improving food in schools .

You may want to start by educating yourself about your school’s food-service program by checking the district’s or school’s website.

And here are some ideas for taking action to improve school meals:

Show your support for healthy school lunches in your community .

You can set up a meeting with your local school district’s Food Service Director (or your school superintendent) to find out what changes are already in progress and to see how you can help.

Be an advocate for healthier food in your school district .

The Chef Ann Foundation has a parent advocacy toolkit . Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has a healthy school lunch campaign . They offer resources for schools, parents, and schools.

Start a farm-to-school program .

You can find some suggestions from Kids Health here .

Get a school garden in a school .

You can find helpful guides and resources from The Lunch Box here .

Start Meatless Mondays in a school.

Foodservice workers can use this guide from Meatless Monday. Students, parents, and staff can use this ambassador guide from Meatless Monday.

Advocate for more plant-based options .

You can try encouraging a school to offer one plant-based entree per day by sharing recipes and testing them with staff. Amie Hamlin, the executive director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food, which offers 13 plant-based, kid-approved recipes , suggests this idea to make an impact

Help increase nutrition education in a school .

You can help implement the Coalition for Healthy School Food’s Wellness Wakeup Call , which provides schools and classrooms with daily, healthy eating tips that can be read in classrooms and over PA systems. This program is free for schools in New York, but out-of-state schools can use it for a small fee.

Advocate for lunchtimes that are long enough for students to get to eat.

You can advocate for lunches that are at least 30 minutes long and for scheduling recess before lunch. Research backs up these changes for getting kids to eat more fruits and veggies. The Peaceful Playgrounds Foundation has resources to help lengthen lunches.

Contact elected officials.

You can support legislation and funding that promote healthier school lunches. Contact your elected officials and let them know why healthy school lunches matter. Call to schedule a meeting with your member of Congress to speak out for federal change, with local school board members, or with a school board superintendent to take action locally. You can sign up for action alerts from the School Nutrition Associate Action Network to stay informed and engaged about school nutrition policy issues.

Students can take action, too .

The School Nutrition Association has 10 tips for students who want to make a difference in the school cafeteria.

What If School Lunches Around the World Encouraged Healthy Eating Behaviors?

Children’s bodies and brains are still developing — and the habits and attitudes they’ll carry with them throughout life are being formed.

Healthy, balanced school lunches could lead to better health and better academic performance for students. They could lead to reduced aggression, hyperactivity, and other problems. And they could help break the cycles that trap low-income children in poor health.

Healthy school lunches could also help reverse childhood obesity trends, which lead to type 2 diabetes and other chronic illness. And they could contribute to a healthier and more productive future for the next generation.

As former President Harry S. Truman said when signing the National School Lunch Act: “ No nation is any healthier than its children or more prosperous than its farmers. ”

Tell us in the comments:

What are your experiences with school lunch, how will you take action.

Featured Image: iStock.com/SDI Productions

10 revolutionary ways school lunch is improving (plus, healthy school lunch ideas) 

Lindsay Oberst

View Profile

Trending Articles of the Week

11 banned foods americans should stop eating, 7 healthy dinner recipes for two — ready in under 1 hour, eat the rainbow: why is it important to eat a colorful variety of fruits and vegetables, why is fiber good for you (and how to get enough fiber), are hazelnuts good for you how & why to use hazelnuts, hydroponics: how it works, benefits and downsides, & how to get started, looking for whole life club or a product from 2018 or later.

Click the button below to log in.

Log In Here

Looking for older Food Revolution Network products?

The Food Revolution Network team has moved all of our products onto one platform. You can log in with the same email you used for older (pre-2018) products at the link above.

Enter your search below:

FREE Guideboook

Optimize Your Brain Health

Unlock the potential of your brain with our free guidebook. Discover which foods can enhance cognitive function and keep your mind sharp.

Download Your Free Guidebook

PLUS: Get a FREE Pass to the  2024 Food Revolution Summit Docuseries!

Join Food Revolution Network

And receive the top 10 foods to eat and avoid for  longevity infographic poster.

• Send me text reminders and updates
• Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By entering your information here, you are agreeing to receive messages from Food Revolution Network. Your email address will NEVER be shared or sold. You are always free to easily unsubscribe at any time. For more information see our Privacy Policy .

By checking the “Send me text message reminders and updates” box you agree to receive important updates, reminders, and promotional messages about events and products from Food Revolution Network (FRN). Message frequency varies. You can stop receiving messages at any time by texting STOP to 67692, for help text HELP to 67692. Message and data rates may apply. By opting in for text messages, you authorize FRN to deliver marketing messages using an automatic telephone dialing system. SMS opt-in is not a requirement for purchasing any property, goods, or services. By leaving the “Send me text message reminders and updates” box unchecked you will not be opted in for SMS messages at this time. See our Privacy Policy and Terms for more info.

No thanks, I don’t want the free poster.

The New York Times

The learning network | is school lunch really all that bad.

Is School Lunch Really All That Bad?

Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.

• See all Student Opinion »

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which took effect in 2012, is supposed to make sure that school lunches are healthier. Greasy pizza and salty French fries are supposed to be things of the past. But are kids eating what’s being served? Can school lunch both taste good and be healthy?

In the news analysis “ Why Students Hate School Lunches ,” Kate Murphy writes:

More than 30 million children trundle through school cafeteria lines every day in the United States and thanks to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which took effect in 2012, they are no longer served greasy pizza, salty French fries and sauced up chicken wings. Meals must now be lower in fat, calories and sodium and contain lean proteins, more fruits and vegetables and whole grains. And kids from coast to coast are wrinkling their noses. Food and nutrition directors at school districts nationwide say that their trash cans are overflowing while their cash register receipts are diminishing as children either toss out the healthier meals or opt to brown-bag it. While no one argues that the solution is to scrap the law and go back to feeding children junk, there’s been a movement to relax a few of the guidelines as Congress considers whether to reauthorize the legislation, particularly mandates for 100 percent whole grains and extremely low sodium levels, so school meals will be a bit more palatable and reflective of culinary traditions. “Other than mandating more fruits and vegetables, the new regulations haven’t really changed anything except force manufacturers to re-engineer products” so they meet the guidelines but not children’s taste expectations, said Bertrand Weber, director of culinary and nutrition services at the Minneapolis Public Schools. “Now kids get whole grain doughnuts — whoop-de-do.” And yet, cafeteria operators complain, the new regulations forbid them to serve a classic baguette, semolina pasta or jasmine rice, much less the butter and flavorful sauces that often go with them. Never mind that these are staples of diets in other cultures with far lower rates of childhood and adult obesity than in the United States.

Students: Tell us …

— Do you eat your school lunch? Do you like it? What’s your favorite menu item?

— Are the trash cans in your school’s cafeteria overflowing with uneaten lunches, as the article describes? Or do most students eat their school lunch? How much food do you throw away when you’re finished eating?

— Is school lunch really all that bad? Or is it just saddled with a bad reputation from mystery meats and soggy vegetables of the past? What ideas do you have to make school lunch taste better?

— Can school lunch both taste good and be healthy? Or is that goal a lost cause? What changes would help you become a healthier eater?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. All comments are moderated by Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

This topic was suggested by Caroline Cunningham, an eighth-grade student who is a member of our new Student Council .

What's Next

30 Million Kids in American Schools Deserve Better Nutrition

In the news / 23 February 2023

A closer look at the USDA’s latest proposal on added sugars in school meals

As a Stanford Impact Labs postdoctoral fellow working closely with Dr. Anisha Patel at the Stanford School of Medicine, I focus my research on understanding how policies that facilitate a healthy food environment improve health and prevent the onset of noncommunicable diseases, with the potential to reduce health disparities. 

When the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced its current proposal to limit added sugars in school meals, I sat down with Stanford Impact Labs’ Kate Green Tripp to discuss the implications.

In early February 2023, the USDA announced new nutrition standards for school meals. What is important to understand about this?

School meals currently serve about 30 million children between the ages of 5 and 18 in the U.S. The majority of these kids are low-income or at increased risk of food and nutrition insecurity. School meals were first introduced in 1946 with the aim of improving food security, which simply means access to food. 

In 2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act strengthened nutrition standards for school meals to improve not only food security but also nutrition security — in other words, access to healthy and nutritious food. These standards limit the amount of salt, fat, and calories in school meals and standardize other requirements, such as ensuring that meals include whole grains, fruit, and vegetables. Yet no standard currently limits added sugar in school meals. The need for such a check has become urgent because research shows that school meals exceed the daily limit recommendation of added sugars per day. 

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) recommend consuming less than 10% of total daily calories from added sugar, and the American Heart Association recommends limiting added sugar to less than 25 grams (~6 teaspoons) per day. On Feb. 3, 2023, the USDA announced a new  proposed rule on nutrition standards for school meals, which established a reduction of sodium and the first-ever limit on added sugars in school meals, in alignment with the DGA. If these new nutrition standards are implemented, school meals will be required to limit added sugar to less than 10% of total calories per day.

What does the average school meal look like now, specifically when it comes to sugar content?

Anecdotally, we know school meals have a lot of sugar, though few studies have evaluated the added sugar content. One study that assessed the amount of added sugars in school meals in 2014-2015 found that 92% of schools exceeded the limit recommendation (less than 10% of calories) in school breakfasts. The same study found that 67% of schools exceeded the limit recommendation in school lunches.

At the end of 2020,  Dr. Anisha Patel , associate professor at Stanford — in partnership with Cultiva La Salud, the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and the UC Nutrition Policy Institute — performed a  photovoice study to evaluate the perception of school meals among parents in elementary schools in the San Joaquin Valley. 

At that time, schools were operating virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but parents were allowed to pick up meals for their kids. For this study, parents were asked to take photos of the foods they received, and then in focus groups, they discussed their perception of the meals. One topic parents discussed was the healthfulness of the meals. In particular, parents perceived that school meals were “ full of sugar . ¨ Working alongside two student interns in Dr. Patel’s lab — Jonathan Tyes, a medical student at the University of Louisville, and Brandon Cortes, a high school student — I used the photographs that parents provided to quantitatively evaluate the amount of added sugar in school meals.  

We  found that parents’ instincts were right: School meals are high in added sugar, and on average, school meals contain eight teaspoons (33 grams) of added sugars per day, which is two more teaspoons than the American Heart Association recommends as a daily limit. Like the previous study, we identified that the top sources of added sugar were items that are commonly consumed at breakfast, such as flavored milk, yogurt, pastries, bread, and dry fruit. We discovered some cases in which a single breakfast of a blueberry muffin, dry fruit, and low-fat milk provided up to 10 teaspoons of added sugar — almost twice the daily limit, all in one dose as a child’s start to the day.

What do we know about the health effects of sugar on school-age kids?

Added sugar is associated with many adverse health outcomes. For example, in the short term, sugar increases the risk of  tooth cavities . Added sugar is the leading cause of tooth decay in children, and high added sugar consumption in children is associated with excess  weight gain, which increases the risk of being overweight or obese. Added sugar is also associated with  cardiovascular risk factors in children, such as lipid alterations, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and high blood pressure. In overweight or obese children, a high intake of added sugar is also associated with insulin resistance.

A closer look at nutrition in American kids reveals alarming numbers:

• Children in the U.S. consume an average of  17 teaspoons (70.8 grams) of added sugar per day. 
• About 8 in 10 school-age children in the U.S. consume more than 10% of calories from added sugar.
• More than one-third of children in the U.S. meet the definition of overweight or obese .
• 1 in 5 adolescents have  pre-diabetes .
• 1 in 5 children ages 6-11 and more than half of adolescents have experienced  dental caries.

What will it take for the proposed standards to be implemented?

It is important to note that the USDA's proposed rule is simply that: a proposal. The USDA will receive  public comments for 60 days before developing the final rule. If the proposed rule doesn’t change, the policy will not be fully implemented until the 2027-2028 school year to allow schools to adjust to the necessary change s. In the meantime, in the 2025-2026 school year, the amount of added sugar will be limited on items that are the primary sources of added sugars in school meals, such as grain-based desserts (no more than 2 oz equivalents/week), breakfast cereals (no more than 6 grams/oz), yogurt (no more than 12 grams/6 oz), and flavored milk (no more than 10 grams/8 oz).  

I would like to see this policy be implemented sooner rather than later with stricter standards, but I am hopeful and recognize this as a huge step in the right direction. However, I anticipate the proposal will see a lot of pushback from the food industry, which is known for using a variety of tactics to prevent and delay health policies that could affect their economic interests. That makes this a particularly critical moment for children's health advocates to submit comments   supporting these standards and to remain vigilant until the standards are fully implemented.

In other exciting news, California is also considering passing a  bill that would limit added sugar in school meals based on the American Heart Association recommendation of less than 25 grams/day. If this bill passes, California will be the first state to have stricter added-sugar criteria, and this measure will likely be implemented sooner than the USDA standard.

Share this In the news

What Teens Think of Their School Lunches: 5 Takeaways From a National Survey

• Share article

When it comes to providing school meals, schools have moved from one crisis to the next over the past few years.

First, it was how to feed kids when school buildings were shuttered at the height of the pandemic. Next, came massive supply chain disruptions that made finding basic items like milk a Herculean task.

Now, this year, schools have struggled to get eligible families to enroll in the federally funded meal program , which families must do for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic in order to access free- and reduced-priced school meals.

With all those challenges, it’s easy to lose sight of students’ experiences with school meals. But that can be especially detrimental to middle and high school students, says a recent report from the nonprofit No Kid Hungry . That’s because, the organization says, older students are less likely to participate in school meals, despite being more likely to experience food insecurity.

And it’s an issue that’s only worsening as inflation and rising labor costs are driving up food prices beyond what family budgets can absorb.

Hunger makes it harder for kids to learn, and research has shown that school meals tend to be healthier than packed lunches. So, getting kids to participate in school meal programs—especially those from low-income families who may otherwise struggle to afford food—is crucial for their academic performance and overall health.

That makes understanding teens’ perceptions of school meals especially important, according to No Kid Hungry. So, it surveyed an informal sample of 1,000 students across the country, ages 12-18 for insights for school leaders on how to improve teens’ school meal experiences and participation rates.

Below are 5 big takeaways from survey:

1. Teens actually think school meals taste good

A majority of teens give their school meals positive reviews, according to the survey. Sixty-four percent said that school meals taste good while 55 percent said they are high quality. Even so, a substantial minority of teens don’t agree with those statements: One in five said they are unlikely to get school meals precisely because of poor taste and quality.

2. Student feedback leads to participation

Teens want the chance to provide their feedback on school meals. Eighty-seven percent of teens said that if schools asked them for their input on how to improve school meals, they would be more likely to eat them. It was one of the biggest motivators teens cited. But just a hair over half said that their school has never asked for their input on school meals.

3. Convenience is key

Eighty-three percent of students said that having meals available to them throughout the school day would make them more likely to eat school meals. About three quarters of students said that knowing they could get school meals at neighborhood locations or dropped off at their house when school is out of session would make them more likely to get school meals.

4. Lunch time is important to school climate

School meals aren’t just important to students’ nutrition, they also play a key role in building community and a more positive school climate. Nearly three-quarters said that school meals gave them an opportunity to build friendships and community with other students.

5. A hunger to know what’s in their food

Students really want to know what they’re being served in the cafeteria, and they want to be able to find that information online.

Ninety-two percent said that knowing what is in the food that schools serve would motivate them to get school meals. Seventy-seven percent said that knowing that school meals have to meet specific standards to ensure students are eating healthy, nutritious meals would make them more likely to participate in school meals. Eighty percent said that having a website with detailed information about school meals would be an additional motivator, and 73 percent said the same about seeing updates on social media about school meals.

Challenges facing school meal operations

Although supply chain disruptions have eased since this time last year, schools are now facing unusually high levels of school meal debt that has accumulated since the federal government stopped paying for all students to eat for free at school.

The universal free meals were part of a pandemic-era initiative that ended this summer. Families either aren’t aware that school meals are no longer free for everyone or that, even if they are eligible for free- and reduced-price meals, that they need to fill out paperwork to receive that benefit.

And some families may fall into a gap where they earn too much to qualify for free- and reduced-priced meals but are still struggling to pay for school lunches because of inflation.

As a result, meal debt has been piling up, even in districts where school personnel have been working to inform families of the changes since the summer.

In many districts, families have accumulated as much or more meal debt in the first few months of this school year as they have for an entire school year in the past.

Eighty-five percent of students said they would be more likely to want to et school meals if they were completely free.

Sign Up for The Savvy Principal

Edweek top school jobs.

Sign Up & Sign In

The Effects of Children Eating Unhealthy School Lunches

The federal government has a variety of rules and regulations that apply to school lunches. These mandates are designed to make sure that healthy lunches are available in school, but in reality, what ends up on a child's plate isn't always nutritious. A junk meal or two won't have a permanent impact on a child, but eating unhealthy lunches for years can take a seriously negative toll on both mental and physical health.

Advertisement

Lunch Standards

Video of the Day

In early 2012, the U.S. government updated the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. Changes included counting fruits and vegetables as separate meal groups, offering fruit every day, making half of grain choices whole grains, giving different grades different meal sizes and reducing sodium and trans fat in meals. However, not all schools implement the NSLP and not all students eat the healthier choices schools do provide.

Obesity and Other Weight Issues

One major risk of unhealthy school lunches is a contribution to obesity and other weight problems in children across the nation. According to the Weight-Control Information Network, about a third of kids and adolescents in the United States are overweight or obese. Even if the government regulates the number of calories a child's school lunch has, as it does with the NSLP, many schools allow children to purchase a la carte foods on top of the lunch that are calorie-rich and high in fat, sodium, sugar or all three.

Physical Effects

Effects of poor nutrition from school lunches go beyond weight gain. A child who eats too much fat, sugar, sodium or processed food and too few vitamins and minerals is likely to develop a higher risk over time for several chronic health problems. These might include diabetes, kidney stones, bone loss, cancer and heart disease. 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.

Mental Effects

Proper nutrition is also tied to better academic performance, so kids who eat unhealthy lunches are more likely to score lower on tests and have a harder time with schoolwork. There are long-term effects as well. 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. According to 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.

• U.S. Department of Agriculture: Nutrition Standards in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs
• Weight-Control Information Network: Overweight and Obesity Statistics
• U.S. Department of Agriculture: Why Is It Important to Eat Vegetables?
• Seattle PI: Nutrition Can Greatly Impact Your Child's Learning Ability
• The Waterbury Record: School Lunch Rules - Bad Side Effects
• British Journal of Nutrition: Effects of Diet on Behaviour and Cognition in Children

Featured Topics

Featured series.

A series of random questions answered by Harvard experts.

Explore the Gazette

Read the latest.

To assess a smoker’s lung cancer risk, think years — not packs

Eat this. Take that. Get skinny. Trust us.

High doses of Adderall may increase psychosis risk

Chef and educator Ann Cooper, speaking at a Harvard conference on food in public schools, said schools should work to serve nutritious, wholesome foods, with plenty of fruits and vegetables, rather than the packaged and processed foods that are prevalent in many institutions.

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

A dearth of nutrition in school lunches

Alvin Powell

Harvard Staff Writer

At conference, food reformers strategize how to put fresher, healthier options on students’ plates

U.S. school cafeterias are starved for funds, lack facilities, and are staffed by workers who often know more about wielding “box cutters and can crushers” than chefs’ knives, according to Ann Cooper , a onetime celebrity chef turned Colorado lunch lady and school food reformer.

Cooper, speaking at a Harvard conference on food in public schools, said schools should work to serve nutritious, wholesome foods, with plenty of fruits and vegetables, rather than the packaged and processed foods that are prevalent in many institutions. Part of the challenge, she said, is money. When more than half of a school district’s cafeteria budget goes toward personnel, it’s tempting to opt for prepackaged food that requires little preparation.

But epidemics of diabetes and obesity prove that the choice is a false one, Cooper said. Both conditions, which cost some $250 billion annually to treat, have their roots in an unhealthy diet. To address the school food portion of the problem and how it affects young lives, she said, will require significantly more money for facilities — many schools today don’t even have kitchens — staff training, and fresh, whole foods.

Cooper called on every school to start a garden to help students understand where their food comes from, and for nutrition and food literacy to be a core part of the curriculum, not an add-on to an occasional health class.

Despite tight federal budgets, Cooper said that America should invest in school food programs because diet is so important to child health. The federal government, she said, spends less on school meals per pupil than most people spend on coffee each day.

“It’s not that we don’t have the money; we are choosing not to prioritize our kids’ health,” said Cooper, who is director of food services for the Boulder Valley School District and founder of the Chef Ann Foundation, which works on national school food reform.

Cooper was the keynote speaker Wednesday at an all-day conference on the foods served in the nation’s public schools. The conference was sponsored by Harvard University Dining Services , the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Project Bread, the Greater Boston Food Bank, and the Let’s Talk About Food program.

After a brief welcome by David Davidson, managing director of Harvard University Dining Services, Let’s Talk About Food founder Louisa Kasdon said the organizing groups’ interest in improving the quality of school food grew out of a broader interest in diet and the U.S. food supply. School nutrition, she and other event organizers thought, was a topic that should be readily addressed.

“How hard could that be?” Kasdon said, sparking laughter among the almost 200 people gathered in Harvard’s Sever Hall.

Instead of the easy task they expected, she and others found it a difficult fight to change school food offerings, which the critics rapidly learned is the most regulated aspect of the nation’s food system.

“Kids who don’t eat well when they’re young, from the get-go, never really catch up,” Kasdon said.

The speakers addressed a variety of issues, including federal policy, the business of school food, what kids now eat at school, links between diet and cognition, and models of change.

Emily Broad Leib , director of Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic, said that Congress is now considering reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, which expires in September. Among other things, the act provides nutritional guidelines for school lunches, and must be reauthorized every five years. The last reauthorization, in 2010, took significant steps toward improving the nutritional quality of school lunches, Leib said. Possible changes this time include increasing the amount of federal reimbursement for meals, taking steps to increase student participation in the program, and providing grants for kitchen equipment and staff training.

The school nutrition program is so large — 30 million children eat school lunches daily — that the stakes extend beyond America’s schoolyards, Leib said. Changes to the food program can influence the broader U.S. food system, which is facing a host of its own related challenges.

The heavy lifting doesn’t have to occur just at the national level. While the federal government provides a broad framework, state and local governments have wide latitude in determining the final form of school food programs, according to Bettina Neuefeind, a research fellow at Harvard Law School who collaborates with the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic.

Neuefeind said the clinic has worked with Project Bread to create a “school food interventions toolkit” that includes an array of suggestions on how to improve school foods. She discussed just a few of them, including proven ways to “nudge” students into making good food choices, emphasizing food literacy, and paying attention to what are called “competitive foods,” those sold to students outside the national food program, in cafeterias, or at school-related events.

Efforts to improve school food have generated backlash, with some critics complaining that kids throw away the food they don’t like. That, Cooper said, is a problem that’s up to adults to solve by setting rules and guidelines for what kids eat. It hasn’t been that long, she said, since the days when there was no such thing as “kid food,” just food that kids ate with the rest of the family or they went hungry.

“No child has ever died for lack of chocolate milk and chicken nuggets,” Cooper said.

Share this article

You might like.

Far more cases get caught when screening guidelines consider duration of habit regardless of intensity, study finds — especially among Black patients

Popularity of newest diet drugs fuel ‘dumpster fire’ of risky knock-offs, questionable supplements, food products, experts warn

Among those who take prescription amphetamines, 81% of cases of psychosis or mania could have been eliminated if they were not on the high dose, findings suggest

Good genes are nice, but joy is better

Harvard study, almost 80 years old, has proved that embracing community helps us live longer, and be happier

Do phones belong in schools?

Banning cellphones may help protect classroom focus, but school districts need to stay mindful of students’ sense of connection, experts say.

What Is Lunch Shaming? How Accessibility to Lunch Impacts Student Learning

What is lunch shaming? Imagine a high school cafeteria in which a student’s meal is taken away and thrown in the trash in front of his peers because his lunch account had an outstanding balance of $4.95. In another school, a student’s breakfast was thrown away due to a 30-cent debt. And one school denied a child breakfast even though the child’s mother told the school over the phone that she was on her way there to pay for it.

These scenarios are just a few examples of lunch shaming, a practice in many schools that is intended to shame students and their parents into paying overdue meal bills to the schools.

The detrimental impact of lunch shaming on students extends beyond the embarrassment and indignities they experience from being treated as inferior. A lack of regular nutritious meals affects students’ physical and mental health; it also impairs their cognitive ability. By examining the causes of lunch shaming, parents, educators, and policy makers can devise winning strategies to combat the practice.

How Flawed School Funding Leads to Lunch Shaming

The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) free school lunch program serves 29.7 million students. Free lunches are available to students whose households have income at or below 130 percent of poverty. Reduced prices of 40 cents for lunch and 30 cents for breakfast are offered to children whose household income is between 130 percent and 185 percent of poverty.

The American Bar Association (ABA) states that lunch shaming is the result of the way schools fund their breakfast and lunch programs. State and federal government agencies place students into two categories: those who qualify for assistance under the USDA program’s guidelines and those who must pay the set price for school-provided meals.

However, many students fall into a third category: their family income exceeds the thresholds set by the school lunch programs, but the families cannot afford to pay for their school meals. While every state operates some form of school lunch program, many of these programs are “optional and self-supporting,” according to the ABA. This prevents them from receiving government funding, although they may accept federal and state cash aid, federal commodities, and charitable donations.

States are taking steps to eliminate lunch shaming and ensure that all students receive the nutritious meals they require to thrive in school. In 2017, New Mexico became the first state to pass legislation prohibiting lunch shaming. In late 2019, California passed a similar law that guarantees lunches to all students, whether or not their parents or guardians have paid for their meals, as CNN reports.

Nevertheless, lunch shaming persists across the country in school districts that serve less nutritious “alternative meals” to students unable to pay their meal fees. These meals often consist of a simple cheese sandwich, as CNN explains.

In June 2019, Senator Tina Smith and Representative Ilhan Omar, both of Minnesota, introduced the No Shame at School Act in Congress. The federal legislation would prohibit schools from shaming students who are unable to pay their school meal fees or who have any other outstanding debt. The law would also require that schools certify students’ unpaid meal bills and would allow the federal government to reimburse the cost of meals for up to 90 days.

The Importance of Nutritious Meals to Student Success

Lunch shaming highlights the connection between nutritious meals and academic performance. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 is intended to help schools provide balanced meals to children during the school day. The USDA cites a Harvard survey that found children ate 16 percent more vegetables and 23 percent more fruit in their school lunches as a result of the law, with no increase in food waste. In addition, schools have recorded a $200 million increase in revenue from school lunches.

However, the greatest benefit of more nutritious meals for students pertains to academic performance. A University of California, Berkeley study concluded that healthier school meals contributed to higher academic test scores.

Since the total number of meals served by schools didn’t increase after more nutritious meals were served, the researchers concluded that the higher test scores were the result of the improved quality of the meals students were served rather than the quantity. The researchers also found that student academic performance increases when schools contract with vendors that offer more nutritious meals even though they may cost more.

How Education Policy Can Combat Lunch Shaming

Feeding America outlines a three-part strategy for eliminating lunch shaming in US schools:

• Contact members of Congress and state legislators to encourage them to support legislation that prohibits schools from singling out students in front of their classmates when they are unable to pay for school meals.
• Request that local school districts adopt school meal strategies that emphasize students’ health and dignity. Insist that school districts make their school meal policies public and give parents the opportunity to comment on and influence those policies.
• Communicate with relatives, neighbors, and other community members about the importance of shame-free school meal programs and support local efforts to promote access to healthy meals for all children.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that parents and education policy makers encourage school districts to teach children about the importance of nutritious meals. Part of the education occurs in the lunchroom by serving students healthy foods that they may not be familiar with. Children should be given at least 20 minutes from the time they sit down with their meals to finish eating and socializing with their classmates, according to the CDC.

Contribute to Education Policies That Promote Student Health

Widespread academic excellence cannot be achieved without active voices promoting policies that ensure students’ physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. Programs such as American University’s online Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership equip educators to drive the social change required to give every student the ability to thrive in school and the opportunity to excel.

The American University program emphasizes policy, leadership, law, economics, and research to prepare graduates to contribute to the transformation of education in America. Learn more about how the online Master of Education in Education Policy and Leadership degree program prepares tomorrow’s leaders in education.

Transformational Leadership in Education

Teacher Retention: How Education Leaders Prevent Turnover

Teacher Leadership Roles Inside and Outside of the Classroom

American Bar Association, “The Incentives Behind Lunch Shaming”

Associated Press, “How ‘Lunch Shaming’ Is Facing Scrutiny Across the US”

Brookings, “How the Quality of School Lunch Affects Students’ Academic Performance”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Making Time for School Lunch”

CNN, “The Government Already Knows How to End School Lunch Shaming”

CNN, “School Lunch Shaming Will Now Be Against the Law in California”

Feeding America, “Three Ways You Can Fight School Lunch Shaming in America”

Food Research and Action Center, “The End of School Lunch Shaming?”

NBC News, “School Lunch Debt and Lunch Shaming Is a Problem That Needs a National Solution”

NEA Today, “States Take on ‘Lunch Shaming,’ but Child Nutrition Still Under Threat”

Proactive Health Labs, “Why Healthy School Lunches Are Important”

University of California Berkeley, “School Meal Quality and Academic Performance”

US Department of Agriculture, “National School Lunch Program”

US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, “Fact Sheet: Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act School Meals Implementation”

US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, “Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act”

Request Information

AU Program Helper

This AI chatbot provides automated responses, which may not always be accurate. By continuing with this conversation, you agree that the contents of this chat session may be transcribed and retained. You also consent that this chat session and your interactions, including cookie usage, are subject to our  privacy policy .

Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Nursing — Importance Of School Lunches

Importance of School Lunches

• Categories: Nursing

About this sample

Words: 568 |

Published: Mar 13, 2024

Words: 568 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

In conclusion, the significance of school lunches extends far beyond simply providing sustenance. These meals are essential for promoting student health, academic performance, and overall well-being. By acknowledging their importance and prioritizing their quality, we can create a positive and nurturing environment for students to thrive. As such, school lunches should be regarded as a fundamental aspect of the educational experience, deserving of our attention and investment.

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below:

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof. Kifaru

Verified writer

• Expert in: Nursing & Health

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 894 words

3 pages / 1192 words

1 pages / 630 words

3 pages / 1295 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Nursing

Nursing as a profession is rooted in the nurturing and care of individuals, families, and communities to achieve optimal health. The development of a professional identity is crucial for nurses as it impacts patient care, career [...]

American Nurses Association. (2021). Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice (4th ed.). Silver Spring, MD: American Nurses Association.Nightingale, F. (1860). Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not. Harrison and [...]

Altman, M., & Rosa, W. (2015). Redefining “time” to meet nursing’s evolving demands. Nursing Management, 46(5), 46–50. doi:http://dx.doi.org.libaccess.fdu.edu/10.1108/DLO-02-2017-0009

The social justice in nursing essay delves into the critical role of nurses in promoting equitable and fair healthcare for all individuals. Social justice, a fundamental principle of nursing, emphasizes the importance of [...]

The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study provides important education to health care providers that can change the course of children’s lives. Unfortunately, this is not regularly educated to patients within primary care. [...]

In the realm of healthcare, integrity is a pillar that upholds the trust between patients and healthcare professionals. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of nursing, where integrity serves as the bedrock of ethical [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Getting a Better School Lunch

By working with schools, parents can make their kids’ cafeteria lunches healthier and more planet-friendly.

Tom Merton/Getty

• Share this page block

Picture a school cafeteria lunch. What comes to mind? Pizza, Tater Tots, chicken nuggets? The quality of school food has improved in the last 20 years­—thanks in large part to 2010’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act , which mandates that schools serve a fruit and vegetable every day, increase the number of whole-grain foods, and limit trans fats and sodium. Of course, there’s still work to be done. “Many schools are still hard at work increasing fruits and veggies and phasing out more processed foods,” says Margaret Brown , an NRDC staff attorney who spearheads NRDC’s regional food efforts and is working closely with the Urban School Food Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of six of the largest school districts in the United States.

And the potential health impact of improving school meals is enormous. Some 32 million kids eat school meals every day, and for many low-income students, those meals supply more than half their daily calories. And the waste created by all-too-common polystyrene trays is adding to the already-astronomical pollution in our waterways.

It’s great to get excited about making change in your child’s school, but before you march into the principal’s office or a PTA meeting, do your homework. “Talk to the administrators who are involved in food-related decision-making—often the school food director—and ask how the process works and what they’re up against,” Brown says. With an average of $1.30 to spend per child, most public schools face significant challenges. So build relationships first. Then ask, How can I help? “Most schools want to make healthy changes and would welcome parents’ assistance,” Brown says. Here’s where to start.

Strive for a salad bar.

“Getting kids to eat more vegetables and fruits is something we can all get behind,” Brown says. “Salad bars are usually a huge hit because kids like to choose what they eat,” (To reduce waste, suggest posting a sign saying ‘Take What You Want, But Eat What You Take.’) Because the equipment for a salad bar can cost $3,000 or more, you may need to get creative on funding. “I did a lot of grant writing and talked to any business owner who would listen. A lot of them donated funds,” says Jessica Shelly, food services director for Cincinnati Public Schools, which installed salad bars in every one of its schools in less than a year. Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools, an alliance among chef Ann Cooper and produce associations and grocers whose goal is to have a salad bar in every school in the country, offers additional suggestions .

Steve Debenport/iStock

Check out new vendors.

To improve the quality of cafeteria food in general, visit Focus on the Plate , which lists 50 healthy food products, like poultry free of unnecessary antibiotics and vegetarian burritos as well as the suppliers that offer them. “More and more companies are offering healthier options,” says Kathy Lawrence, cofounder of Focus on the Plate’s parent organization, School Food Focus , which links school districts with healthy food producers and suppliers. “Parents can make a big impact by researching local or regional proprietors who are willing to work within the school’s budget.” Or encourage your school to offer one plant-based entrée every day by sharing recipes and testing them with the staff, suggests Amie Hamlin, executive director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food, which has 13 plant-based, kid-approved recipes of its own.

Get fresh and (really) local.

Building a garden has significant upfront costs—as much as $40,000—but a surprising number of companies have made a practice of contributing funding to schools willing to take on the challenge, including Whole Foods and Lowe’s, says Lisa Ely, a mother and TV producer in Valencia, California, who consults with schools on how to build gardens. “I’ve found that the best way to sell schools on the idea is to help them see it as a learning tool for kids, as well as a potential resource for the cafeteria,” she says. “You can get PTAs interested by telling them about research showing that kids who spend 20 minutes outside are better able to focus.” Also, she says, when kids plant and harvest the produce themselves, they’re more likely to eat it.

Lengthen lunchtime.

Fitting lunch into the school day can be a struggle for many schools—kids may get only 20 minutes for lunch or eat as early as 10:45 a.m. “It’s hard to get kids excited about eating their fruits and vegetables when they aren’t hungry yet or simply don’t have the time,” says Brown. One way to ensure that kids are hungry when they hit the cafeteria: Ask your school district to schedule recess before lunch, Lawrence suggests. ( Peaceful Playgrounds offers helpful guidance.) In 2014, researchers at Cornell University found that students who had recess first ate 54 percent more fruits and vegetables compared with those who had lunch first. If your school has 20 minutes or fewer for lunch, convince the principal, school board, and other parents that it should be extended by at least 10 minutes; studies also show that kids eat more—and healthier—food when they have more time.

Slash waste.

The first step is a messy one: Sort the cafeteria’s garbage and do a waste audit, so you know what’s being thrown away, suggests Debby Lee Cohen, founder of Cafeteria Culture , an organization aiming to achieve zero-waste school cafeterias. What you’re likely to find: lots of polystyrene trays. “There are 30 million or so daily meals served in U.S. schools—many of those trays end up contributing to the 270 million metric tons of plastic floating in our oceans,” Cohen says. Replacing trays with reusable dishes is the ideal solution, but Cohen points out that many schools no longer have dishwashers. Push for compostable paper food boats (imagine what ballpark hot dogs are served in), even for just one day a week. “When we started Trayless Tuesdays in New York City, we reduced the waste by 20 percent,” she says. "Paper boats cost 3 to 4 cents a piece, about the same as polystyrene." Compostable trays that look more like regular lunch trays are about twice as expensive, so you may need to fund-raise to pay for it, or band together with other districts to lower the price by increasing your purchasing power. The success of Trayless Tuesdays in 2010 led the city to completely eliminate polystyrene foam from schools and other restaurants citywide in 2015. And with NRDC’s assistance, all of the Urban School Food Alliance cities have also committed to ditching polystyrene trays for compostable plates . (For ideas and inspiration, check out Cafeteria Culture’s Sort2Save program.)

Focus on flavor.

Back to that garbage audit. You’ll also likely find lots of uneaten food. And this raises an important point: Serving healthy meals is only half the battle. It needs to taste good, too. Revamping the menu with input from a talented local chef can significantly increase students’ consumption of fruits and vegetables, according to 2015 research at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Wellness in the Schools has chefs that will come to schools in New York, New Jersey, Florida, and California and teach the existing kitchen staff how to create nutritious fare that kids will gobble up.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can’t resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can’t republish our material wholesale or automatically—you need to select stories individually; you can’t republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should drop us a note to let us know when you’ve used one of our stories.

Related Stories

How to Turn Your Patch of Earth From Barren to Bountiful

The Pesticide in Your Crisper Drawer

Attention Food Lovers: Eco-Conscious Eating Isn’t All About Distance

When you sign up, you’ll become a member of NRDC’s Activist Network. We will keep you informed with the latest alerts and progress reports.

• Resource Library
• Food Insufficiency During COVID-19
• Interactive Data Tools
• Best Practices
• Mapping Tools

Benefits of School Lunch

School lunch is critical to student health and well-being, especially for low-income students—and ensures that students have nutrition they need throughout the day to learn. Research shows that receiving free or reduced-price school lunches reduces food insecurity, obesity rates, and poor health. In addition, the new school meal nutrition standards are having a positive impact on student food selection and consumption, especially for fruits and vegetables.

Quick Facts

• Reimbursable meals must meet federal nutrition standards. National School Lunch Program lunches provide one-third or more of the recommended levels for key nutrients.
• Reimbursable meals must provide no more than 30 percent of calories from fat and less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat.
• New nutrition standards phased in since the 2012-2013 school year required schools to increase whole grains, fruits, and vegetables served through the National School Lunch Program.

School Lunch Participation:

• According to one estimate using national data, receiving free or reduced-price school lunches reduces food insecurity by at least 3.8 percent.
• Among a sample of low-income children entering kindergarten, receiving a free or reduced-price school lunch reduces the probability of household food insecurity at school entry, whereas paying full price for school lunch is associated with a higher probability of household food insecurity.
• Rates of food insecurity among children are higher in the summer — a time when many do not have access to the good nutrition provided by the school meal programs available during the academic year.
• Children participating in school meals are less likely to have nutrient inadequacies and are more likely to consume fruit, vegetables, and milk at breakfast and lunch.
• Low-income students who eat both school breakfast and lunch have significantly better overall diet quality than low-income students who do not eat school meals.
• The new school meal nutrition standards are having a positive impact on student food selection and consumption, especially for fruits and vegetables.
• Packed lunches brought from home by pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students have more calories, fat, saturated fat, and sugar than school lunches, and less protein, fiber, vitamin A, and calcium, according to a study conducted after implementation of the new school meal nutrition standards.
• Few packed lunches and snacks brought from home meet National School Lunch Program standards.
• Participation in federally-funded child care nutrition or school meals provided in child care, preschool, school, or summer settings is associated with a significantly lower body mass index (BMI) among young, low-income children. These findings lead researchers to conclude that “subsidized meals at school or day care are beneficial for children’s weight status, and we argue that expanding access to subsidized meals may be the most effective tool to use in combating obesity in poor children.”
• Based on national data, economists estimate that the receipt of a free or reduced-price school lunch reduces obesity rates by at least 17 percent.
• Receiving free or reduced-price school lunches reduces poor health by at least 29 percent based on estimates using national data.
• Behavioral, emotional, and mental health, and academic problems are more prevalent among children and adolescents struggling with hunger.
• Children and adolescents experiencing hunger have lower math scores and poorer grades.
• Children experiencing hunger are more likely to be hyperactive, absent, and tardy, in addition to having behavioral and attention problems more often than other children.
• Teens experiencing hunger are more likely to have been suspended from school and have difficulty getting along with other children.
• Children with hunger are more likely to have repeated a grade, received special education services, or received mental health counseling, than low-income children who do not experience hunger.

Research Brief Shows That School Breakfast and Lunch Programs Continue to Have Multiple Positive Effects on Students’ Health, Learning, and Well-Being

Read the brief

Sep 12, 2024 Child Tax Credit and Nutrition Programs Improvements Needed to Address Poverty in America

Sep 04, 2024 USDA Food Security Report Highlights Startling Hunger Crisis in America

Aug 28, 2024 As Farm Bill Expiration Approaches, NWLC & FRAC Release New Resource on Importance of SNAP for Women and Families

Back-to-school season is in full swing. Students and families across the country are meeting new teachers, adjusting to new classrooms and routines, and getting out backpacks and school supplies.

Along with pencils, markers, glue sticks and gym shoes, there is another back-to-school essential, healthy food to fuel student achievement.

Eight states — California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont — have passed Healthy School Meals for All policies so schools can offer all students school breakfast and lunch at no cost to families. These policies reduce childhood food insecurity, stretch family budgets, and ensure all children are hunger-free and ready to get the most out of their school day.

Organized by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a “presidential transition project” that makes numerous policy recommendations that would negatively impact the federal nutrition programs as well as other critical federal anti-poverty, education, and health programs. The policy proposals would also weaken federal offices, departments, and regulatory agencies. The over 900 page Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise includes 30 chapters, with . Chapter 10 detailing their proposals for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the federal nutrition programs:

This August marks the 60th anniversary of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), A lot has happened in six decades. Find six key things to celebrate about SNAP.

• Skip to content
• Skip to secondary menu
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

Health and Medical Blog

Pros and Cons of School Lunches

School cafeterias are providing every child in the school with nutritious meals as part of their school routines. They have to adhere to strict nutrition guidelines, so these lunches are often very good for the students.

But is it really good for parents to allow their child to buy foods in the school canteen for their lunch? Are the school lunches safe and healthy for their children?

The Pros of School Lunches

Here are some of the advantages that your child may get when you choose to let your child by and eat school lunches:

• School lunches have good value and many options to choose from. They are offering the foods that meet the nutritional standards that every child must possess.

• Children are given the chance to discover something new aside from the homemade pack lunches that their parents are usually preparing. They can easily get along with their friends and classmates who used to eat their school lunches in school.

• School lunches taught every child good table manners since every school canteen are providing good table etiquette as part of their school learning.

• Parents will save their time since they will no longer prepare lunch for their children. All they have to do is to lend their child money in order to buy their school lunches. Children can also save time since school canteens are well organized with their smooth system on giving school lunches for children.

The Cons of School Lunches

Here are some of the disadvantages that both parents and their children may get if they used to buy their lunch at the school:

• Although school lunches are offered in several options, there are instances that the foods that are served in the canteen are not the types of food that they wanted to eat. By these, children will be tempted not to eat anymore and choose to eat foods that they really like.

• Parents at home can no longer control the eating habit of their children especially during their lunch. They can no longer focus on the balanced diet of their child since they are allowing them to eat their school lunches.

• School lunches offer every child less flexibility. The choices are limited because menus are already fixed ahead of time.

How Do You Feel About School Lunches for Children?

Parents need to make sure that even if their children are in the school, they are being guided and given the chance to eat foods that are high in nutritional content and good for their body. They need to see to it that the food that their children eat is safe and clean. Either school lunches or homemade pack lunches, parents should still guide the eating habit of their child accordingly.

• 13 ANC Nails Pros and Cons
• 15 Artificial Sphincter Pros and Cons
• 14 Hysterectomy for Fibroids Pros and Cons
• 15 Monovision Lasik Pros and Cons
• 12 Pros and Cons of the Da Vinci Robotic Surgery
• 14 Peritoneal Dialysis Pros and Cons
• 14 Pros and Cons of the Cataract Surgery Multifocal Lens
• 19 Dermaplaning Pros and Cons
• 15 Mirena IUD Pros and Cons
• 11 Pros and Cons of Monovision Cataract Surgery
• Calories Burned
• Cancer Articles and Infographics
• Definitions and Examples of Theory
• Definitions for Kids
• Dental Articles and Infographics
• Elder Care Articles and Infographics
• Environmental
• Health Research Funding
• Healthcare Articles and Infographics
• ICD 9 Codes
• Major Accomplishments
• Medical Articles and Infographics
• Nutrition Articles and Infographics
• Pharmaceutical Articles and Infographics
• Psychological Articles and Infographics
• Skin Articles and Infographics
• Surgery Articles and Infographics
• Theories and Models
• Uncategorized
• Videos on How to Get Research Funding

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

current events conversation

What Students Are Saying About Improving School Lunch, ‘#Megxit’ and Emoji Fun.

Teenage comments in response to our recent writing prompts, and an invitation to join the ongoing conversation.

By The Learning Network

In this week’s roundup of student comments on our writing prompts , we asked young people for suggestions on how they would improve school lunches , invited them to weigh in on the current situation with the British royal family, and issued a literary challenge involving emojis.

As always, we received a number of thoughtful responses. Before we dive in, let’s offer a warm welcome to new classes from Battle Ground Academy and Franklin, Tenn .

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear exactly as they were originally submitted.

What Suggestions Do You Have for Improving Lunch at Your School?

In “ What if Children Ran the School Lunchroom? ” Anahad O’Connor reported on FoodCorps , a nonprofit organization that connects children to healthy food in schools.

We asked students to tell us what they thought about FoodCorps, the lunches at their school and their cafeteria experience overall. Many shared suggestions for improving the quality of the food offered, as well as ideas for minimizing the amount of waste.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

  Take 10% OFF— Expires in h m s Use code save10u during checkout.

Chat with us

• Live Chat Talk to a specialist
• Self-service options
• Search FAQs Fast answers, no waiting
• Ultius 101 New client? Click here
• Messenger  

International support numbers

For reference only, subject to Terms and Fair Use policies.

• How it Works

Learn more about us

• Future writers
• Explore further

Ultius Blog

Sample essay on healthy school lunches in america.

Select network

This sample essay from Ultius will explore the issue of schools within America failing to serve adequately healthy lunches to the children of the nation. As our readers will see in this sample essay, the freelance writers at Ultius thrive on sensibly arguing any side of any topic- especially a much debated topic as what are children should eat in school. If you find yourself overwhelmed or short on time to produce an essay for an upcoming deadline, consider using sample essay writing services from Ultius and connect with a professional writer.

School lunch in America has been a topic of debate for quite a long time. Indeed, it would sometimes seem that efforts in this regard produce so little in the way of results that one would be justified in wondering whether efforts to improve the quality of school lunches taken on behalf of a lost cause. The purpose of the present sample essay provided by Ultius is to discuss the plight of healthier school lunches in America. The essay will begin with a consideration of First Lady Michelle Obama's recent efforts in this regard. Then, the essay will turn to the problem of cost when it comes to school lunches; and after this, it will discuss the problem of children simply not eating healthier lunches even when such lunches are made available to them. Finally, the essay will critically reflect on the state of school lunches in America and attempt to get to the bottom of the real problem. While this sample reflects undergrad level essay writing , our team is ready and able to write on this subject at any level you require.

Healthy school lunches in America: The First Lady's perspective

To start with, then, it is worth noting that Michelle Obama has recently taken efforts to reform and improve the quality of school lunches, as part of her more general campaign to address the public health issue of childhood obesity. The main relevant law in this regard is the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA), which was passed in the year 2010.One of the main provisions of this program had consisted of considerably stricter nutritional requirements for the food that is served to students within schools.  Julie Kelly and Jeff Stier of The National Review have written the following about this law:

Championed by First Lady Michelle Obama, the HHFKA set new nutrition standards for school meals while expanding access to taxpayer-funded breakfast and lunch to millions of students. . . . While the law was initially hailed as a noble effort to address the American paradox of childhood hunger and obesity, the HHFKA may have created more problems than it solved (paragraph 3) .

It would seem, however, that this initiative, well-intentioned as it obviously is, has met with considerable failure. For example:

...the new standards led to kids throwing out their fruits and vegetables, student boycotts, higher lunch costs, and odd pairings such as 'cheese stick with shrimp' in order for schools to comply with the complicated rules (Harrington).

Some of these specific issues will be addressed in greater depth below. For the time being, though, it is perhaps worth simply pointing out that there is considerable potential for a disjunction to arise between what is a technically nutritious meal on the one hand, and what it is actually desirable as real food for children on the other. In the battle for nutrition education and preventing obesity , a child's taste profile is a key opponent. It would seem that in general, Michelle Obama's initiative has led to schools attempting to follow the letter of the law with respect to the regulations, sometimes or even often at the expense of the subjective quality of the food in terms of balance and taste. This is somewhat ironic, to say the least, and it calls into question the very concept of the "healthy" itself, insofar as the concept does not seem to adequately take into account the way that children subjectively experience their food.

In any event, it will now be worth turning to two specific issues regarding the plight of healthier school lunch programs in America. The first of these has to do with cost, both in terms of the money available to produce school meals and the money it costs to purchase those meals. And the second has to do with students simply not eating the lunches that are being served to them. Each of these issues is a crucial part of why it has proven to be so difficult for so long to achieve sustainable and meaningful improvements in the quality of the meals served through school lunch programs across this nation. 

What is the cost of a nutritious school meal in The United States?

Regarding the issue of cost, it is surely worth considering the government's funding of school lunch programs. Bettina Elias Siegel of The New York Times writes :

The federal government provides a little over $3 per student per lunch . . . But districts generally require their food departments to pay their own overhead, including electricity, accounting and trash collection. Most are left with a dollar and change for food—and . . .no one is buying scallops and lamb on that meager budget  (paragraph 4) .

In other words, it would seem almost absurd to expect schools to serve healthier or less processed lunches when they are expected to prepare a meal for about a dollar. This would seem to be logistically unfeasible, to put the matter mildly; and it would seem surprising not that school lunches are not healthier but that lunch programs are even able to produce edible food at all with that kind of budget.

Third party management of school lunches for children

Moreover, this problem of cost is exacerbated when schools begin outsourcing their lunch programs to food management companies. "The quality [of the food] goes down; they [the companies] have purchasing powers . . . There's no reason in the world that money [$2.68] should offer a profit. But they know how to manage the subsidies" (Schreiber). These companies, of course, have little incentive to improve the quality of school lunches, insofar as such improvements would get in the way of their profit motive; and as for the schools themselves, most are likely just grateful to have solved the problem of producing meals on such a budget in a relatively painless way. The situation thus becomes one in which the government itself is the only primary stakeholder pushing for healthier school lunches but also refuses to invest the kind of money that would be required in order to actually make this happen. The economics of the matter thus tend to take precedence, and school lunches tend to remain how they are. 

Would you like an evidence based analysis of this subject? Work with our research paper writing services to get what you need.

Is nutritious food going to waste in our schools?

There is a second critical issue facing the push for healthier school lunches—an issue that is so obvious that one may almost be forgiven for having forgotten about it. One of the leading causes of obesity in children is not having access to healthy food . Here, they are provided a healthy balanced meal and declining to eat it.

Getting fresh fruits and vegetables onto lunch trays in public schools was only half the battle, because it turns out most kids still aren't eating them. Researchers from John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health studied students' eating habits and found nearly six out of 10 won't even touch a healthy food option on their plate (Olson).

And of course, there would be no point at all in making such healthy options available in the first place, if there is no effective way to persuade students to actually eat the stuff and much of it will end up going in the garbage. In short, there would seem to exist a serious disjunction between the concept of the healthy on the one hand and the concept of the desirable on the other—a disjunction that policymakers have apparently failed to take with adequate seriousness.

Are healthier school meals for kids even worth it?

Ariana Eunjung Cha of The Washington Post highlights :

in one study, a given student "left the lunch line one day carrying a tray full of what looked like a balanced meal: "chicken nuggets, some sort of mushy starch, green beans and milk. Exactly 13 minutes later she was done. The chicken nuggets and the starch were gone. But the green beans? Still there in a neat pile and headed straight for the trash" 

Among other things, that is a whole lot of wasted time, money, and effort. It would seem that from the perspective of many children, the healthy option in school lunches barely even registers as edible food at all, given how they treat it: they would seem to neatly divide up the lunch into the healthy and the less healthy parts, and then efficiently set aside the former for the garbage. This is a very serious issue, and unless it is addressed in a meaningful way, any further discussion about the value of healthier school lunches would clearly be rendered irrelevant. 

The problem, at least to some extent, would seem to be that school lunches are typically so poorly integrated in the first place. After all, in most normal meals, it is not possible to discretely separate out the healthy component from the unhealthy component; rather, the meal is generally called healthy exactly because it has a good integration of the different components within an actual single unit, as it were. This is a tactic that is commonly used by fast food companies used to mask the health risks typically associated with easting fast food . In their attempts to follow the letter of nutritional requirements, however, most school lunch programs would seem to neglect the concept of the meal as a whole, simply cobbling together various items that technically meet the requirements but are not on the balance appetizing as a whole to the children who are supposed to eat them. The result, then, could be called sadly predictable: children eat what they find appetizing, and throw out the rest; and the parts that are called healthy, due to their poor integration with the meal as a whole, are generally the parts that are thrown out.

Healthy school lunches in America: A critical reflection

The abysmal quality of school lunches within America becomes especially apparent when these lunches are compared with lunches elsewhere in the world. For example, one school in France where one "finds schoolchildren eating scallops, lamb skewers and a cheese course" (Siegel).   Christian Storm of Business Insider notes   that a typical meal in Italy may consist of "fish on arugula, pasta with tomato sauce, caprese salad, baguette, and grapes." Aside from the sheer difference in intrinsic quality, one also perceives a difference in the level of integration of the meals in question: it seems clear that the school lunches in France and Italy, unlike their counterparts in America, are actually conceptualized as unified meals, with the lines between the healthy and less healthy parts of the meal fading in light of the overall total quality of the meal as a whole. At a certain level, then, it can be suggested that the problem with American school lunches is a conceptual one.

The discussion above has revealed that to simple focus on the technical nutritional value of American school lunches does not get anywhere near addressing the real heart of the problem; and this problem can be seen in the simple fact that even when relatively healthier options are including in the lunches, many American children simply refuse to eat them. If the problem of school lunches is to be truly addressed in a meaningful way, then, the concept of nutritional value clearly needs to be supplemented by the concept of desirability. And this is the case because insofar as the lunches remain undesirable to students, any resources dedicated to improving nutritional value will simply end up being a waste. Addressing this issue will likely require the American government to invest in a considerably heavier way in school lunch programs across the nation, not least because it will be necessary for stakeholders to fundamentally reimagine how they think about the food in the first place. If such a paradigm shift does not take place, then it can fairly be concluded that the cause of healthier school lunches within America really is a lost one. 

In summary, this sample essay from Ultius has consisted of an analysis and discussion of the plight of healthier school lunch programs within America. After considering the First Lady's recent efforts in this regard, the essay turned to two key issues regarding American school meals—the issue of cost and the issue of desirability—and reached the conclusion that efforts to improve the nutritional value of school lunches across the nation are essentially just a waste of time, money, and attention insofar as efforts are not also taken to make the school lunches fundamentally desirable for students. This would require investments not only of money but also of imagination; and unless this can be done, it would be unreasonable to expect any meaningful improvements to be made regarding the real quality of school lunches within the nation.

Are you in need of a more sophisticated discussion of this subject? Let the Ultius thesis writers take care of you.

Works Cited

Art Institutes. "Unhealthy School Lunches Not Making the Grade." Author, n.d. Web. 6 Sep. 2016.

Cha, Ariana Eunjung. "Why the Healthy School Lunch Program Is in Trouble." Washington Post. 26 Aug. 2015. Web. 6 Sep. 2016.

Harrington, Elizabeth. "1M Kids Stop School Lunch due to Michelle Obama's Standards." Washington Times. 6 Mar. 2014. Web. 6 Sep. 2016.

Kelly Julie, and Jeff Stier. "Michelle Obama's 'Healthy School Lunches.'" National Review. 9 Sep. 2015. Web. 6 Sep. 2016.

Olson, Samantha. "Students Aren't Eating Healthy School Lunches, Despite Availability." Medical Daily. 17 Nov. 2014. Web. 6 Sep. 2016. 

Siegel, Bettina Elias. "The Real Problem with Lunch." New York Times. 15 Jan. 2016. Web. 6 Sep. 2016. 

Storm, Christian. "Here's How School Lunch in the US Stacks Up against What's Served in the Rest of the World." Business Insider. 9 Feb. 2015. Web. 6 Sep. 2016.

https://www.ultius.com/ultius-blog/entry/sample-essay-on-healthy-school-lunches-in-america.html

• Chicago Style

Ultius, Inc. "Sample Essay on Healthy School Lunches in America." Ultius | Custom Writing and Editing Services. Ultius Blog, 18 Sep. 2016. https://www.ultius.com/ultius-blog/entry/sample-essay-on-healthy-school-lunches-in-america.html

Copied to clipboard

Click here for more help with MLA citations.

Ultius, Inc. (2016, September 18). Sample Essay on Healthy School Lunches in America. Retrieved from Ultius | Custom Writing and Editing Services, https://www.ultius.com/ultius-blog/entry/sample-essay-on-healthy-school-lunches-in-america.html

Click here for more help with APA citations.

Ultius, Inc. "Sample Essay on Healthy School Lunches in America." Ultius | Custom Writing and Editing Services. September 18, 2016 https://www.ultius.com/ultius-blog/entry/sample-essay-on-healthy-school-lunches-in-america.html.

Click here for more help with CMS citations.

Click here for more help with Turabian citations.

Ultius is the trusted provider of content solutions and matches customers with highly qualified writers for sample writing, academic editing, and business writing. 

Tested Daily

Click to Verify

About The Author

This post was written by Ultius.

• Writer Options
• Custom Writing
• Business Documents
• Support Desk
• +1-800-405-2972
• Submit bug report
• A+ BBB Rating!

Ultius is the trusted provider of content solutions for consumers around the world. Connect with great American writers and get 24/7 support.

© 2024 Ultius, Inc.

• Refund & Cancellation Policy

Free Money For College!

Yeah. You read that right —We're giving away free scholarship money! Our next drawing will be held soon.

Our next winner will receive over $500 in funds. Funds can be used for tuition, books, housing, and/or other school expenses. Apply today for your chance to win!

* We will never share your email with third party advertisers or send you spam.

** By providing my email address, I am consenting to reasonable communications from Ultius regarding the promotion.

Past winner

• Name Samantha M.
• From Pepperdine University '22
• Studies Psychology
• Won $2,000.00
• Award SEED Scholarship
• Awarded Sep. 5, 2018

Thanks for filling that out.

Check your inbox for an email about the scholarship and how to apply.