school lunch, the new way
school lunch, the old way
For millions of U.S. students, a hot meal has been part of the school day since Congress passed the National School Lunch Program in 1946. But with many items on today’s menus crammed with fat and calories, educators are taking a cue from the local-food movement to put school lunches on a healthier path.
The National School Lunch Program, intended to prevent the return of Depression-era child malnourishment, allowed the government to buy surplus food from farmers and set minimum nutritional values for each meal. Its budget grew under Eisenhower and Nixon, but the Reagan Administration slashed it by nearly $1.5 billion — making up for the cuts by revising nutritional guidelines, reducing portion sizes and (infamously) attempting to categorize ketchup as a vegetable.
The 1980s and ’90s saw school districts contract with private companies to stock brand-name soft drinks and snacks in exchange for a cut of the profits. While the partnerships boosted school revenue, they also exacerbated soaring childhood-obesity rates.
In an effort to promote healthier diets, some 9,000 schools have joined a national farm-to-school program that provides locally grown food to school cafeterias. The Department of Agriculture is expected to expand school nutrition standards this year, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 63% of schools have stopped selling sugary soft drinks. Yet despite these efforts, most students still pile unhealthy foods onto their lunch trays. Currently, 80% of schools serve lunches with more than the recommended amount of saturated fat; 42% don’t offer daily fresh fruits and vegetables. No matter how you measure it, there’s very little nutrition in a Tater Tot. -jenn
Tags: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, childhood obesity rates, Department of Agriculture, National School Lunch Program, school lunch
Hi, I applaud your blog for informing people, very interesting article, keep up it coming
Excellent Website, I just observed this post even though looking by means of Flookie I think that you and I could have been buddies inside a past life – the posts that I have so far studied so far are actually appeal to me and to my sense of personality! Anyways, idle talk aside, it seems that your RSS feed will not seem to efforts in my browser (Ive just installed Google chrome) do you think you’re in a position to tell me how I can mend it?
I would like to express my appreciation for your post. That’s really great to know that there are such people like you who do their job very well and with such enthusiasm.
Fantastic Info. Tweeted about it. I’ll bookmark this post too.
Thanks for posting such an awesome post! This blog writer is not only knowledgeable but also very inventive too. There normally are a limited number of bloggers who can create technical stuff that creatively. we look for articles about a subject like this. I have gone through many sites to find knowledge regarding this.Keep writing in !!