Better Nutrition in Public Schools
For years, school lunches have been associated with cheese pizza, tater tots, chicken nuggets, milk, and cookies. But these meals, full of preservatives and empty calories, are not providing the children eating these meals with the proper nutrition that they need. For some kids that come from low-income families, the food that they are provided at school may serve as their only food of the day. The food provided through the school serves as the only, or majority, of food given to some kids. This being said, the food being provided should be of good nutritional value. While there are standards that the food being served must meet, not all schools live up to these standards and it seems as though nothing is being done to change this problem. If the kids were provided food with nutritional value and educated about the foods that they should be eating, their lifestyles would improve in many ways.
Schools seem to have all of their attention concentrated on the curriculum, faculty, and money. The cafeteria and food in the school often gets overlooked. But the food served through schools affects millions of children all across the nation. In fiscal year 2012, federal school nutrition programs underwrote more than five billion lunches served to over 31 million students (“Background and Analysis”). It only makes sense that these meals need to be nutritionally- balanced since they are fed to millions of children of all ages. There are requirements and standards given by the government that schools must follow when serving food. The school lunch program includes nutrition requirements for all subsidized meals. These requirements specify the amount of calories, fat, and nutrients needed in a meal depending on the age of the student consuming it. However, fewer than 30% of schools meet the existing nutrition requirements (“Background and Analysis”). There are programs in place to attempt to improve the nutritional quality of the food...