School Lunch

The First Lady usually takes up some sort of cause, and Michelle Obama certainly found hers. She has been on a healthy kids kick, which involved making changes to school lunches. While I know her intentions are nothing but good, her changes have fallen short in many ways.

First off, the milk. The new policy is to serve only 1% and fat free milk. Naturally, the 1% milk goes quickly, and the kids who eat last are stuck with fat free milk. Maybe you think that's a good thing. Actually, research proves that kids who drink fattier milk are actually skinnier. One of the reasons for this is that whole milk causes people to feel fuller and therefore eat less. Especially for active kids, milk fat is a good thing.

Second, Michelle Obama decided that kids shouldn't be served seconds. For some kids, this is no big deal; certainly for me, this would have been a non-issue in my school days. However, for active kids, this is rough. Obviously kids who play sports require many more calories each day. Moreover, this doesn't take a kid's age into consideration. Kindergartners might be fine without seconds, but a growing middle-schooler needs more food. I had middle school kids come to me after eating lunch, asking for food (I kept a drawer with snacks for them) because they were still hungry. Though I've only experienced it a few times, eating a meal and still being hungry SUCKS.

Third, the quality of school food leaves MUCH to be desired. Almost everything comes in a can (BPA, anyone?), bag, or frozen. One day, I saw "waffles" on the school lunch menu. I decided to get it, and was blown away to find these waffles came individually wrapped, heated in their plastic packaging. Of the dozen or so school meals I purchased, most of them seemed to have been heated in a microwave, as much of the food was soggy.

Forth, the serving size for those canned fruits and vegetables was increased so that kids would eat more of these important food groups. Well, if a kid didn't like the small portion previously provided, they probably aren't going to like the new increased portion size. Plus, without a parent to encourage trying a food, or taking just a bite, many kids won't touch their veggies. Soooooo, now you have even more wasted food.

Finally, the time allotted for lunch is ever-decreasing in this age of standardized test prep. My school's lunch periods were 25 minutes. This of course was supposed to include recess. Nothing like encouraging kids to scarf down their food in order to go play. Or, if they did take their time eating, they didn't get recess.