School Lunches: Room for Improvement
Childhood Obesity and School Lunches: Room for Improvement
Frances F. Briguglio and Jamie Kruger
Ferris States University
Abstract
With childhood obesity on the rise in the United States, focus is turned to the nutritional quality of food that children are consuming. Children today are faced with unhealthy food choices at home and at school. School systems in the United States follow regulations when it comes to the type and quality of food they serve students, but many of these regulations don’t address the poor nutritional quality of lunches that are provided. Federal school lunch programs are in major need of improvements in the content and quality of food subsidized. Schools must take responsibility in the education of both children and parents while providing nutritious foods at mealtime. Students that eat nutritionally balanced meals perform better in school and are less likely to develop chronic medical conditions like type two diabetes.
Keywords: school lunches, childhood obesity, nutrition, federal lunch program
Childhood Obesity and School Lunches: Room for Improvement
School lunches are a major area of concern for the healthiness of our children. Within the United States, children are becoming increasingly obese. Serious health complications such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol can occur. Obese children often have lower self-esteem and are often teased or bullied. Unhealthy eating habits are a major contributor to this health concern. Enhancing the healthiness of school lunches is a way to prevent childhood obesity.
This paper focuses on the foods children are consuming in school. Within the school systems, there is room for improvement in school meals. First, facts regarding obesity rates of children, and the types of foods being prepared and served within schools are discussed. An overview of the National School Lunch Program is explored. Next, current beliefs about school lunches are examined. Then, the importance of healthy school lunches is explained, including concepts related to the implementation of new laws. Next, the relevance of this topic to the community is discussed. Then, benefits to children of the community will be explored, including the possible outcomes of implementing healthier lunches. Finally, the topic will be analyzed and interpretations will be made.
Facts
The obesity rate among children is increasing. Within the United States, almost 32% of children ages 6-19 years of age are overweight or obese (United States Department of Agriculture: Food and Nutritious Services, 2011). Children’s eating habits play a role in the reason they are becoming obese. Children spend most of their day at school and are often consuming unhealthy food while there. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2006) reports that 32.7 percent of elementary schools, 71.3 percent of middle schools, and 89.4 percent of high schools have a vending machine, a school store, or snack bar where students can purchase food or beverages. Sports drink and soda pop are the most frequently sold beverages and salty, high fat snacks are the most common food sold.
While some schools are taking measures to make their prepared food healthier, there are still many who are serving food that is high in fat and salt. Only 45.9 percent of schools use part-skim or low fat cheese instead of regular cheese, and only 48.8 percent of schools reduce the amount of salt in their recipes or use low sodium foods (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2006).
President Harry Truman established the National School Lunch Program in 1946. The program is a federally assisted meal program, which offers nutritionally balanced and low cost lunches to school children each school day. Schools that partake in the program must serve lunches that meet the federal requirements. These requirements, as listed on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) website, must meet the dietary guidelines for Americans, which recommend that no more than 30 percent of an individual’s calories come from fat with less than 10 percent from saturated fat, while providing one-third of the recommended dietary allowances of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories (2011). Despite the USDA recommendations, specific food served and the way the food is prepared are decided upon by local school authorities (USDA: Food and Nutritious Services, 2011).
Current Beliefs
There are different viewpoints when it comes to school lunches. There has been recent media coverage, from print to television, declaring school lunches to be unhealthy. Concerned parents are becoming worried and assume they should not allow their children to purchase lunches from school. Many parents are attending school board meetings, demanding reform in the cafeteria. Some parents are starting to pack lunches for their children; however, the lunches they are packing can be even unhealthier than the ones provided by the school.
Another point of view is that of the consumer. Many children assume that healthy equals bad tasting. Typically, healthy food is associated with food that is not as tasty. A study conducted by Lazor, Chapman, & Levine, that tested the use of soy products instead of items high in cholesterol and fat, showed that children consumed just as many soy-based products compared to popular school lunch items (2010). The study also concluded that the soy products offered a nutritional advantage over their high fat counterparts.
Another assumption related to the improvement of school lunches is related to cost. Although it may be more expensive to provide healthier meals, the funding to provide these meals must come from somewhere. An article by Samuels (2011) discusses how schools are worried since the implementation of the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” (to be discussed later). Some are concerned that the funding for the new law will decrease funds to other important areas, such as those that reduce food costs for low-income families.
Most individuals feel that school lunches are unhealthy and there is room for improvement. An article by Finkelstein, Hill, & Whitaker (2008) discuss how many parents feel the food available in schools is unhealthy and further regulations should be in place. They are concerned with their children spending a great deal of time at school and consuming a significant portion of their daily intake there. Community citizens hold assumptions that stricter regulations should be mandated for school lunches, as there is a burden to the community if children develop poor eating habits at such a young age.
Importance of Healthy School Lunches and Legislation Changes
Obesity in children is a growing problem in the United States. Obesity is very difficult to treat, especially in children; therefore it is important to prevent it. One method of prevention is to alter the eating habits of children. Since children spend a great deal of time in school, it is important that they are provided with healthy meal options. Concepts that relate to this include improvement of school lunch programs, eliminating vending machines and a la carte lines (which serve only unhealthy food), and including education on healthy meal choices.
In December 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the “Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act.” This law ensures that not only are kids provided with meals at school, but that those meals are healthy. This law gives the United States Department of Agriculture the authority to set nutritional standards on all foods sold in school, including vending machines, a la carte lines, and school stores. This act will also increase the frequency of monitoring of schools regarding their food programs (The White House, 2010).
In January 2011, the USDA proposed a rule to update the nutrition standards for meals served through the National School Lunch Program. Standards will be raised for the first time in 15 years. More fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free, and low fat milk will be added. Also, the levels of saturated fat, sodium, calories, and trans fat will be limited. This rule has yet to be finalized or implemented (United States Department of Agriculture: Food and Nutritious Services, 2011).
Relevance to Community and Nursing
The topic of school lunches has become a significant issue in terms of health promotion and awareness among parents and healthcare providers. With childhood obesity on the rise, it’s time to examine what types of food our children are consuming at and away from home. As mentioned previously, being obese can cause serious health complications like type two diabetes and high blood pressure, not to mention the emotional distress children go through when they are teased or bullied.
The topic of school lunches and the push to change school requirements to provide healthier fare is of great importance to nursing. Nursing has a responsibility to promote healthier lifestyle options through education, monitoring of behavior modification, and modeling healthy behaviors. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that, “health education is an essential part of a coordinated school health program” (2006). By stressing the importance of both nutrition and physical activity, health education can help students adopt and maintain physically active and healthful eating lifestyles that can be practiced for a lifetime.
Making school lunch options healthier will benefit communities in both the short and long term. Children that are obese often suffer poor performance in school and have a higher number of missed days related to health related problems (Story, Kaphingst, & French, 2006). Long-term effects of obesity have financial implications that could strain an already poor community. Obese individuals often develop chronic disease conditions that require intensive medical supervision that includes medication management, increased diagnostic testing, and frequent hospital stays (Wolf, 2002). Obese adults, like their younger counterparts, often have higher absenteeism from work and suffer low self-esteem.
Benefits to Children
Improving school lunches provide many advantages to children. Young students have the opportunity to learn and recognize healthy food options as they are provided to them. Coupled with education on what constitutes a healthy diet, students will then carry these healthy food practices into adulthood. Children that avoid unhealthy foods, like those that contain high levels of saturated fats, sodium, and sugar, are less liable to become obese and develop chronic medical conditions like type two diabetes and hypertension.
As discussed before, cost is a significant issue when improving nutritional value of school lunches. If a school loses revenue from sales of “ala carte” food products, then the students and schools will suffer in financial terms. A pilot program implemented in a San Francisco school district revealed that when changes were made to take away unhealthy food options and replace them with healthier foods, revenue to the school did not change (Wojcicki & Heyman, 2006). The students were benefiting from improved lunch choices at no loss of revenue to the school.
It has been purported that school performance is bound to improve when students are making healthier food choices and participate in increased physical activity. A detailed Canadian study showed that children that ate a healthy diet that included fruits and vegetables and ate less calories from fat, did better on literacy test than their unhealthy counterparts who ate sugary snacks and calorie laden, processed food (Florence, Asbridge, & Veugelers, 2008). Children that perform better in school are more apt to pursue higher levels of education, therefore having the potential for earning a higher income as adults (Heckman, 2000).
Analysis
Schools districts today are facing many budgetary concerns and need to cut costs at every corner in order to survive. Many schools participate in the National School Lunch Program, and numerous schools participating in this program rely on the commodities that the National School Lunch Program provides, such as ground beef. As an example of the nutritional content, all ground beef is listed as having an average fat content of 15 percent and no more than 18 percent, putting it into the category of “ground round” (USDA, 2007). Ground round, while better than ground chuck, is certainly not as healthy as ground sirloin, ground turkey, or its soy alternative. Creating an overall healthy school lunch menu from the USDA commodity list would be a challenge for any financially strapped school district.
In terms of the consumer, the students themselves pose a roadblock when schools attempt to change lunch options for the better. Children will typically choose the unhealthy food, such as pizza, over a healthier option, such as grilled fish. As discussed earlier, children did not know the difference when soy base alternatives replaced their unhealthy counterparts. The answer to, “kids won’t like healthier school lunches” are programs like Revolution Foods and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. These programs are aimed at creating healthy foods available for school lunch programs at economical costs to schools, while being palatable to young children. The best part about programs like Revolution Foods, and others like them, they provide nutrition education for schools and children.
Conclusion
Raising today’s children to become healthy, active, and productive members of society starts with learning good building blocks today. One vital building block nursing can teach our children is the importance of developing healthy nutritional values through making better food choices, while knowing why. This education needs to be part of schools in the form of healthier lunch options, and a partnering educational program that is provided by healthcare individuals. In order to provide healthier lunch options, there needs to be reform at the federal and state levels and nursing can help lobby for such change. School lunch programs need to be rethought, and federal funding for these programs needs to be made a priority. Nursing, and its organizations, has the ability to promote health to children of the community in order to prevent disease and support wellness. Prevention can begin at any age and the simple act of reforming the school lunch can be a good start.
References
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2006). School health policies and program study. Retrieved from
Florence, M. D., Asbridge, M., & Veugelers, P. J. (2008). Diet quality and academic performance. Journal of School Health, 78(4), 209-216. Retrieved from
Heckman, J. J. (2000). Policies to foster human capital. Research in Economics, 54, 3-56. doi: 10.1006/reec.1999.0225
Lazor, K., Chapman, N., & Levine, E. (2010). Soy goes to school: Acceptance of healthful, vegetarian options in Maryland Middle School lunches. Journal of School Health, 80(4), 200-206. doi: 10.1111/j.1746-1561.2009.00487.x
Samuels, C. (2011). School groups worry revised lunch law could burden districts. Education Week, 30(15), 22. Retrieved from Document URL
Story, M., Kaphingst, K. M., & French, S. (2006). The role of child care settings in obesity prevention. The Future of Children, 16(1), 1550-1558. doi: 10.1353/foc.2006.0010
The White House. (2010). President Obama signs healthy, hunger-free kids act of 2010 into law. Retrieved from
United States Department of Agriculture: Food and Nutrition Service. (2011). School food services. Retrieved from
Wojcicki, J. M. & Heyman, M. B. (2006). Healthier choices and increased participation in a middle school lunch program: effects of nutrition policy changes in San Francisco.
American Journal of Public Health, 96(9), 1542-1547. doi: 10.2105AJPH.2005.070946
Wolf, A. (2002). Economic outcomes of the obese patient. Obesity Research, 10(1), 58s-62s.
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