National School Lunch Program Regulations

Established in 2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act revised the National School Lunch Program’s policies ensuring that children receive a nutritious lunch in school. These changes included offering fruits and vegetables, whole-grain foods, low-fat dairy products and limit calories, saturated fat and sodium (Fisk). Studies show that many children benefit greatly from well-balanced meals during the day.

Act of 1946 as part of a group of requirements to be met by states before they would be

It was lunch time and students walked into the cafeteria to purchase lunch. A wide variety of food was placed in front of them to choose from ranging from pizza to burgers to bags of chips and chocolate bars. Their choices were endless up until a new reform took over and enlisted new changes. The Healthy Food for Healthy School Act was placed on September 1st, 2008. Its policy entailed schools to practice healthy eating where they would be “dropping trans fat from food and beverages sold in schools and establishing mandatory nutrition standards for food and beverages sold in schools” (Ontario Ministry of Education). While this reform plays a significant role in the health of students, it also has a great impact on other sectors.

One of the most controversial issues today is the question of how to address childhood obesity. Because of the large proportion of meals that children, particularly low-income children, consume in schools, cafeteria food has been targeted by dietary reformers as in need of a major overhaul. However, while many different types of new school menus have been proposed, the extent to which healthier foods can be offered remains controversial. Opponents to reform state that children will not eat healthier lunches, and that changing the food that children eat will have minimal impact, since the children will either bring food from home or eat food at home that is more 'kid friendly.'

In order to maximize our program’s ability to provide nutritious meals and snacks, we participate in the federal school nutrition programs, which includes the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. According to the Department of Agriculture, the National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program for public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions (2015). It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day. On the same note, our program participates in School Breakfast Program. The department of Agriculture specifies that this program provides cash assistance to states to operate nonprofit breakfast programs in schools and residential childcare institutions. Both the National School Lunch Program, and the School Breakfast Program, ensures that the children receive the adequate nutrition while the our

“The National School Lunch Program, or NSLP, is a federally assisted meal program operating in over 101,000 public and non‐profit private schools and residential childcare institutions.” ("National school lunch," 2011) This government-run program is headed by the department of Food and Nutrition standards, a subgroup of the United States Department of Agriculture. “It provides nutritionally balanced, low‐cost or free lunches to more than 31 million children each school day in 2009.”

The author’s intention is to inform the reader that the healthy lunch programs are failing. The author provides plentiful information and research on the failing school lunch programs in the U.S. “In the war to get America’s children to eat healthier, things are not going well.” Kids are not eating their vegetables. This has become a big problem in America and steps need to be taken to stop unhealthy eating. Like The Agriculture Department mandating that students in the federal lunch program choose a fruit or vegetable with their meals. This solution didn’t work and actually worsened the problem. “Their consumption of fruits and vegetables actually went down 13 percent after the mandate took effect.”

The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program that operates in over 100,000 schools and child care facilities. Those who participate in this program get cash subsidies as well as food from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Participants are also required to followed dietary guidelines. Meals provided to the students must meet certain nutritional standards and free and reduced priced lunches must be made available to those who need it. By regulating what the schools can serve and

The National School Lunch Program is a federally funded meal program operating in over 100,000 public. It provides nutritionally balanced, low‐cost or free lunches to more than 31 million children each school day in 2012 based on the child's household income (USDA). The program is managed by the Food and Nutrition Service at the Federal level and by a State education agency at the state level. We will be looking at the statistics of the National Lunch Program for five local schools, and compare the number of students enrolled in the districts and the percentage that are receiving free or discounted meals at school. Additionally, the requirements to be eligible to participate in the program, as well as the reimbursement the school

The National School Lunch Program is a great resource for schools to use, to help provide children whom may not be able to afford their own lunches. The problem with the program though is that the recent changes to the requirements schools must follow make it difficult to provide lunches that are appealing and fulfilling to students. Schools also find that it is costing them more to try and follow these requirements and there is a lot more waste because students are not happy. The NSLP needs to change some of its requirements so schools can have some freedom in how lunches are prepared so students will be more likely to eat them. They also need to take in consideration that not every student should follow the same calorie count and how not have enough can affect a student, and too much creates waste. With certain changes the NSLP can be successful once again.

About one in three american students who eat school lunches daily are in some way obese or overweight as of 2015. People in general have been experiencing a new problem in the last decade; obesity rates have been drastically increasing. School lunches may be a big contributor to these increasing percentages in overweight and obesity. The percentages have increased about 18% from tests in 1973 to 1974, to tests in 2003 to 2004. Many schools in other countries have a lower obesity rate because they server non processed foods. If schools were to change their lunches to non

In many schools around the country, high school lunch is off-putting to students. The government has set many laws in place, to improve nutrition where it is lacking in many schools across America. Where the meal adjustment lowered the calories of the meals, it has created deficiencies in important nutrients that are necessary for students of all ages to learn to the best of their ability. Often, many students also find the lunch unpleasant, and unsatisfying. Many researchers, and authors have all gathered a wide collection of evidence that all supports problems with lunches found in American schools throughout the country.

National School Lunch Program feeds more than 30 million students. However, the national standards and meal requirements for these meals were created more than a decade ago. The planning model used to develop current nutritional standards and related meal requirements is based on the 1995 Dietary Guidelines for American and the 1989 Recommended Dietary Allowances. Virginia A. Stallings and Christine L. Taylor edited “Nutrition Standards and MEal Requirements for National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs,” a 2008 study sponsored by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. In this 180 page document, Stallings et al. examine meal programs across the

In America, a country known for its obesity, over eating has become a big crisis. While this crisis is discussed at the national level, it is also a problem here at Liberty High School in Brentwood, California, where the students are affected due to the high calorie diet that is provided by the cafeteria. The consumption of these fatty foods on a daily basis is greatly affecting the student body and this has got to change. An effective solution to this complication is for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) to supply foods that will meet and not exceed the nutritional needs that teenagers need to consume. Although the NSLP supplies the food, the cafeteria staff are the individuals that set up the food trays that the students

Federally-funded school meal programs, including the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP), serve an average of 31.3 million lunches and 11.1 million breakfasts per day at a cost to the country of $11.1 billion in 2011 (Food & Nutrition Services, 2012). These federally-funded meals are an excellent opportunity for regulation of nutrition as well as education regarding healthy choices. Obesity is clearly a great threat to the health of our nation, and the federal government must step in to defend its citizens against this growing threat. Children are at the mercy of their families, their social conditions, and their schools, predisposing them to obesity through poor nutritional options and a lack of education; the federal government must intervene through regulation of school meals and snacks to protect children from the abundance of unhealthy options while also educating them and reducing childhood obesity.