School Lunches, Are They Good or Not? Dec. 2012 | Page 3

Editorial

School lunches as a whole aren’t so bad there might be some days where the food is pretty disgusting, but it’s still not that bad as some people see it. It actually has the right serving sizes for food and is nutritional. They also let kids have a few sweets or snacks with their lunches like ice cream, chips, or cookies but they do limit the amount you can have so students don’t get fat. To help kids get more calcium and build more healthy bones, it is required that each student has a carton of milk with their meal. They have nutritional guidelines for each school to make sure that they’re getting the right amount of protein, calcium, and nutrients and to help develop growth.

At schools, they do serve healthy vegetarian options such as salads and have been trying to fight childhood obesity. Ground beef used to be made out of lean beef trimming which is basically pink slime but since they passed a new law, meat is now made with less fat. Over 5 years, school lunches have been improving and now not many kids are eating that much junk food like they used to. In California, teens and kids both consume the least amount of sugar and unhealthy food than any other state in the country.

The costs for lunches at schools are very cheap at a cost of $2.60 and if the family can’t afford it, then they’ll most likely give it to the student for free. Also in New York trans-fat and large soda cans in cafeterias are now banned due to unhealthiness. When students had returned to school this fall, the menu options were all low-fat and had high fiber in them at Parsippany High School. The calorie intake is also controlled so that kids don’t turn into obese and fat adults when they grow up. Right now, fighting childhood obesity and improving school lunches is what people should be focusing on now or all of our young children will become fat in the future.