Hunger Free-Kids Act
You wouldn’t know it from looking at it, but the U.S. spends 14 billion dollars a year to feed about 30 million children in public schools. In 2010, Michelle Obama changed school lunches to healthier options to stop childhood obesity in its tracks. Unfortunately, the Hunger-Free Kids Act had a lot of negative opinions from children in school. When she first passed the law, children went from eating pizza and chicken nuggets for lunch every day to eating a strange and sloppy mush. A tweet reads “Had a very #healthylunch today. The apple definitely made up for the “mystery mush” #ThanksMichelleObama,” and was posted Nov. 13, 2014. Another tweet reads,”Grilled cheese and plastic for lunch..yummy ?????? #ThanksMichelleObama” By @KendraPohlman on Nov. 21st 2014.
Lunches Around the World
Lunches in other countries are vastly different from American lunches. According to various sources, French school lunches involve a piece of meat, many vegetables such as a beet salad and green peas, fresh fruit, and a baguette. Compared to what children were being served in 2014 in America I believe this is a healthier and much more well rounded plate of lunch. In Spain, a photo shows children being served rice with shrimp, a side of peppers, gazpacho, a seeded roll, and half an orange as dessert. An average American school lunch looks something like this, chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, frozen green peas, a fruit cup, and a chocolate chip cookie. Compared to the other lunches in France and Spain, America simply isn’t well rounded or healthy. Children in America deserve well rounded and healthy meals for lunch equally as much as other countries do.
America is very bad with vegetables, so bad that in order to save 1.5 billion dollars from funding children’s nutrition the Reagan Administration considered ketchup as a vegetable. This allowed the USDA to eliminate one of the two vegetables needed on an American lunch tray. This slash was not only harmful, but should also be illegal.
Opinions
A fellow student of mine, Mariia is going to speak her opinion and experience with American school lunch. A quote from Mariia, “After eating school lunch, I feel un-energized, and bloated. How does a peanut butter sandwich have 300+ calories??” She also says, “Back in middle school I was served moldy apples and after another student ingested the turkey served he got extremely sick and had to be sent home.”
Quotes from other Lake Mary students read, “The lunches have gone downhill, they’re disgusting. Sometimes it’s cold and raw. The quality overall is extremely poor.” “After a draining day of school, I want a hot lunch. Some days I am met with overcooked chicken or uncooked pizza dough. This is not what I want after I’ve just spent hours in 4 classes.” “The lunches aren’t bad, I just wish they didn’t serve the same things every day. I want them to switch it up! After a while of only having limited food options you get bored.” “They’re absolutely awful.”
Conclusion
Overall, compared to lunches in other countries American school lunch is not healthy nor balanced. Students all across America are being met with uncooked food and poor quality. Even with the Hunger-Free Kids Act lunches have not improved over the years and may have even decreased in quality. It is completely unfair for a child to have to eat food like this while also having to pay for it. Here at LMHS the lunches are more high quality than others, but they still aren’t their absolute best. Ask yourself, would you eat this?
