School Lunch Programs For Children

In the United States many citizens face hunger, starvation and malnutrition on a daily basis. This food insecurity affects millions of Americans. Food insecurity is caused when Americans don’t have enough money to purchase food for themselves and their family. When children experience hunger if affects them both physically and psychologically. “Children who are denied an adequate diet are at a greater risk of not reaching their full potential as individuals. Undernourished youngsters have trouble concentrating and bonding with other children and are more likely to suffer illnesses resulting in school absences.” (Karger, p 371) It is important for children to meet their full potential in order for society to continue thriving into the future. If children are not receiving an adequate education because they have an empty stomach, then they will not continue to higher education or they will do poorly. In order to combat hunger in children the federal government responded with several major programs. Two of the programs the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) are targeted towards school age children. These programs provide students with breakfast and lunch while they are at school.

School lunches are often unsung heroes of many modern American households. Frequently overlooked and disregarded because of their stigma, school lunches are a key ingredient that may help make the world a better place. Unknowingly, great numbers of individuals in our communities deal with food insecurities every day of their lives. It baffles me that in an advanced society many people do not have the resources to provide food for themselves or their families. Until it affected me personally, I was unaware nor passionate about the struggles of food insecurity. My passion for solving food insecurity in my local community has led me to gain both experience and leadership through understanding and advocating for those around me.

Have you ever thought why you’re school lunch looks so disgusting? Have you ever thought what it’s actually made of? Or why doesn’t this look like the way I ate it at home? For some schools, lunches lack in many different categories from visual pleasure to taste. If the school lunches taste so bad, why don’t we try another way to make them better. For a school in Greeley, Colorado, they’re doing just that. They’re firing up their stoves and are ready to get the ball rolling. There are many reasons on why the school is taking such a huge step backwards. Like, the routine of buying reheated foods and serving them without hesitation. The schools budget cuts or the kitchen being too old and small for the process of preparing such foods. As well as, the list of ingredients that do not need to be in the foods and the risks of diseases/bacteria in the reheated lunches.

Hunger has been a prevalent issue in both established communities and struggling nations around the globe. It seems that there has never been a time when every person on the planet was food secure, and while it is typically assumed that hunger is an issue only in developing nations, malnutrition and hunger are concerns even in the United States. Millions of children across the country live in homes where food is scarce and meals are skipped on a regular basis. Because research supports the connection between nutrition, good health, and cognitive ability, it is critical that methods of addressing food shortages for minor children be found. One solution, the School Breakfast Program, seeks to provide healthy breakfast meals for children

Children are so oblivious to the fact of what they're eating. As long as the children recognize what type of food it is and it looks good, they'll immediately eat it. They think the food they're eating is completely sanitary and taste good. But, in fact they're eating processed meat of some sort that is made in a factory and just has extra things added to it to give it a good look and taste. Some of these products are actually healthy until these multi million dollar company's pay processors to deep fry their food. The company's who makes the food has hundreds of added meats, such as: zinc oxide, copper gluconate, and potassium chloride. The company's don't care about these children's healthy, but as long as they're getting paid it's okay to

“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.”

School lunches also have a major in weight in children’s health. Child obesity was a very rare thing in the past, but now it has become an epidemic. There are many reasons why children are now obese, but one of the reasons is because school breakfasts and lunches are very unhealthy. School meals in America look like what people who expect to see at a

People live in a complex world where things are never as simple as they seem. Officials agree that in order for students to perform well in school, their basic needs have to be met (in conjunction with the ideas of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). While schools may not be able to provide a safe place to sleep or warm clothing during the winter, they can provide a healthy, nutritious meal. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, the number of children under 18 years of age living below the federal poverty level of $23,550 for a family of four represent 21.1% of the population (“Child Poverty,” n.d.). The National Lunch Act and its subsequent revisions have sought to mitigate the effects of hunger. Unfortunately, there are other circumstances that affect the desired outcomes of serving a balanced meal to students in need.

Healthiness is not an entitlement, it is a right. As a result, it is becoming increasingly important to focus on current food standards to not only create a brilliant, but also abled-bodied generation of future leaders. However, current guidelines established by the National School Lunch Act only address one-third of a minimum daily nutrients requirement. In fact, a recent seven-month survey found that only 22% of the student body view their lunch as nourishing compared to 94% of school staffs (School Nutrition Standards). The disproportions between students and non-students are due to the distasteful stigma associated with school lunches and requires a change of policy. Even though school nutrition standards exist, they inadequately address the essential dietary requirements of the student population and should be modified after successful guidelines in countries like Japan and Finland, and incorporate student opinion to satisfy the public and maintain health.

The Nation 's second biggest nutrition and nourishment aid program is the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). More than 99,000 public and non-profit private kindergartens through twelfth-grade schools benefitted from this program by receiving over 30.3 million reduced-cost or free lunches with the Federal Government spending $12.6 billion per year. Almost 5 billion lunches were served in school lunchrooms in 2014, over two-thirds of those lunches were at a reduced-cost or were free of charge. The research discovered that the children who were more likely to eat the meals at school and obtained most of their nutrition and food intake from these meals at school lunchrooms were from marginally secure and food- unstable homes.

Being the petty teenager I am, I decided to research the weaknesses revolving around America's current public school lunch program after getting into an argument regarding the healthfulness of school meals. I was called a picky eater for virtually refraining school meals from entering my diet for the past few years, whereas I concluded that a majority of my peers would agree that our school lunch program is far from desirable. To support my claim, I began to research school lunches and its correlation to child obesity. I also went into detail on the impact of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act and how governmental mandates have shaped our system. However, I also discussed the unhealthy and wasteful mindset about food our children obtain and carry from their experiences as a student. Finally, I critiqued the school meal programs of other modern countries to help point out possible approaches to fixing the system.

Elementary through high school students complain about how poorly made the food is and how they are still hungry after lunch. “Kids get seconds if they are still hungry, but they choose unhealthy selections”(citation) Schools are basically starving students by not giving them enough protein and nutrition. Schools in America need to step up their game. They all need more fruits and vegetables in their school lunch lines. They should gradually add more and more healthy foods, so the

The school lunches they sell now are horrible. They’re processed and are almost literally tasteless. If the school keeps it up with these changes, the students will eventually get to the point where they will not eat school lunches at all. The school will lose large amounts of money if the students do not eat what they

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

Have you ever tasted school cafeteria food? I don’t think you would want to. In school story books, do you have characters saying that the food tasted good at school cafeterias? Nope. Why is this? Cafeteria food is often cheap, bought in bulk, high in calories, malnutritious, and microwaved. Student polls and opinions prove this. Therefore, this leads to a suggestion: Healthier, tastier foods and a better, advanced lunch system should be implemented.