The Effects Of School Lunch Programs On Children 's Nutrition

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.

The new generation continues to increasingly fall under obesity’s evil spell. Although many Americans recognize that their children are obese, they fail to accept that this is an epidemic that should be controlled and given dramatic attention to. Research suggests that childhood obesity in the United States has doubled in the past decade. Despite the fact that we have necessary resources to control these statistics, Americans continue to expose their youngsters to unhealthy and fattening meals. It is no joke that America is the fattest nation in the world. Thus, preventing this serious issue should be perceived as a life-or-death situation where if we fail to control it, many more overweight children will grow up to be obese adults in the future.

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 (NSLP), originally initiated in 1946 under the name the National School Lunch Act, has served in excess of 224 billion school lunches to children throughout the United States since its inception (National School Lunch Program). The goals of the program include serving a school lunch that meets certain nutritional requirements and is available at low or no cost to eligible students (National School Lunch Program). While the program has undergone many changes over the decades, the core tenants of the program have remained intact. Changes should be made to the way the National School Lunch Program operates to ensure that all students have access to a lunch that is nutritious and affordable for all income levels, while accommodating the palate of each child.

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.

Obesity is a threat to the health of this nation and is the root of many life-threatening ailments, including coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and type 2 diabetes (“What are the Risks of Obesity and Overweight” 2012). These diseases severely decrease the the quality of life for those affected, with many of the victims suffering greatly until they are consumed by death. The treatment of these diseases is expensive and it does not cure the underlying cause nor does it ameliorate its grueling side effects. 17% of children aged between 2 and 19 are obese (“Prevalence of Childhood Obesity” 2015), creating a new generation of obese Americans. These children are being plagued by diseases that previously solely affected adults, namely diabetes and heart disease. Along with the children, the elderly and middle-aged are prone to obesity as well. 40.2% of Americans between the ages of 40 and 59 are classified as obese, along with 37% of people over 60 (Ogden et. al., 2015). The quality of life for these individuals is severely diminished, and it is

The goals,is to improve school food, teach nutrition, support sustainable food systems, and create an education program focused on understanding the relationships between food, culture, health, and the environment.By the time today’s kindergartner finishes high school, she may have eaten well over 4,000 school meals—4,000 opportunities to strengthen her body and mind, introduce food pleasures that will make her a lifelong healthy eater, and deepen her engagement with the natural world. The more than 5.5 billion lunches and nearly 2 billion breakfasts served yearly in school programs, along with complementary education programs, can have a profound effect on issues of public health, academic performance, economics, justice, national security,

About 220 billion lunches have been served since President Truman’s signing of the National School Lunch Act in 1946. However, according to the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine study, about 36% of children ages 6 to 11 are overweight and 20% are obese. The rate of obesity has risen since the 1940’s, but school lunch has made revisions to create meals to be healthier and more nutritionally dense for the child. Research has shown overweight people are only becoming more overweight and normal weight people are staying the same or developing healthier lifestyle

People who support Obama's food policy claim that parents need having their kids eat at school help because cannot ensure their kids are eating properly at school.of course parents can't know everything they eat at school.my second reason is even thinking that schools need to limit food choices this doesn’t make government control right.even though i think they don't have to do that but of course i know you have to watch your food limit but it doesn't have to be like that all the time.my third reason is ‘ The federal standards have faced criticism from nutrition officials as well as students. The independent Government

Nevertheless, the National School Lunch Program provides unique ideas for improving the program in the future. By improving the guidelines into modern needs it helps to think about what can be changed to make it better in the future. Talk From Earth wrote in "Cafeteria Food - Improving School Lunches - How to Make Cafeteria Food Better for Kids and the Environment," that by banning sugary food and food from school lunches, it causes the administrators and many parents to want to have healthy lunches and be more green. This got me thinking how urban schools can achieve this same success in developing a more nutritious lunch in different ways. By schools teaching better eating habits it can affect the future for students. As Elisabeth Leamy

The improved nutritional standards of public school lunches benefit one’s individual health by providing them with the necessary nutrients to human

According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years,” meaning that America’s children need to start eating healthier, including healthier school lunches. The National School Lunch Act is a fairly recent addition to American society. For, as the world waged war a second time, the United States began to worry about the strength and health of the country’s soldiers. However, in the beginning, selling excess agricultural goods was more important than building a healthy, well-balanced meal for students. Unfortunately, many children coming from poorer families could not afford well-balanced school lunches, so in order to compensate, the School Lunch

Don’t you want your children to be provided with a great meal? School lunches should be able to supply a healthy, balanced meal for students for feeding their young bodies and minds with only the best foods for fuel. Catering to their growing bodies and brains will improve academic performance, increase attendance, and help fight childhood obesity. We need to change the program all together by giving children the choice to select items of what they put on their lunch plate, as well as teach students what a healthy lifestyle is.

Do students eat healthy lunches when they are school? Statistics show that public schools are given students frozen and processed food such as frozen burgers, nuggets, even the salad is even frozen and processed. Not to mention that school lunch doesn’t offer water, instead students drink milk with more than 150 calories along with tons of hormones or juice with 100 calories per serving and more sugar than 5 donuts. Schools not only offer frozen food they also have bending machines around their campuses full with junk food and sugars. School trashcans are 40% full of hot cheetos bags, this means that almost every student eat a bag of chips every day. Eating unhealthy not only can cause you diseases, but also can affect the student emotions and academic performance. “If students aren’t eating sufficient amounts of food in schools, they may leave school hungry and then over consume less nutritious foods. This may place them at increased risk for unhealthy weight gain and mood changes” –Juliana Cohen This is clearly the lunch that will lead student’s to type one diabetes or obesity.

School meals provide one-third to one-half of a child’s daily caloric intake.1 Therefore, school lunches have a large impact on the health of children who purchase lunch or participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The recent change in the NSLP standards gave students more availability to fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products and required students to have at least one fruit or vegetable serving on their tray in hopes that healthy eating behaviors would be increased.2 After review of this program, research shows that fruit selection increased by 23% and vegetable consumption increased by 16.2%.3 A cross-sectional observational study conducted in 12 elementary and 10