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Summary Of How School Lunch Became The Latest Political Battleground

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Nicholas Confessore, the author of ”How School Lunch Became the Latest Political Battleground”, displays the challenges of transitioning from the old rules to the new rules as part of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign. It is clear to all parties that childhood obesity is rising at a dangerous rate in America and school lunches are believed to be the necessary first change. Unfortunately, the multiple different parties that are involved in making the changes do not see eye-to-eye. The School Nutrition Association is one of the groups pushing back against the new government policies. Since the SNA is comprised mostly of lunch ladies, they believe the current meals are the healthiest meal most students receive in a given day.

It was first thought that the nutrition program for young Americans needed to be altered due to the military in 1945. Nearly half of recruits were turned away due to being overweight based on following a poor diet. The military believed that young americans needed to be prepared for war at all times and that by being overweight or obese would hurt them during battle. The article goes on to say, “(they were) too fat to fight” which represents the first shift in the battle to fight childhood obesity. …show more content…

During President Nixon’s term he strengthened the school lunch subsidy program up to 25 million children. Subsidies were given to school districts to make sure that every child was fed at lunch time. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan both made cuts into the National School Lunch Act that led to school districts having less money to spend on lunches. This was in line with their party’s political stance which was to lessen the central government. The lower amount of money led to a decrease in nutritious food and an increase in processed food meaning higher caloric and sodium intake for children across the

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In Free for All: Fixing School Food in America, Janet Poppendieck points out in the very beginning of the book, that school food isn’t healthy at all and most aren’t helping break the chain of overcoming these issues. She starts off by explaining her visits to various schools and her hands-on experience into the world of school lunches. Poppendieck explains how nutrition-deficient meals came to dominate America's schools and discusses the problems in the national school lunch/breakfast programs. Even how those in charge of creating these menus overlook what is really being given to these children for lunch/breakfast just because they can label it as a fruit or a vegetable. She shows how many key figures are looking for reimbursement from the free, reduced, or full priced meals because they can claim some federal dollars, and make sure that kids at least taking three out of five items offered to them; this is what congress called “offer versus serve”.

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Overall, the food being given to the children of America was unhealthy and led to childhood obesity increasing rapidly. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA)

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Ariana Cha combats a seriously pressing topic in her writing. While many articles are very quick to bash the school lunch program, while this article can enforce it. Cha is supporting the most common argument with the school lunch program, nutritional content. Cha is stating that the nutrients are offered, but are not being accepted by the students. The audience intended for this reading is, literally, anybody that disagrees with the provided meals.

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“The school lunch program, begun in the 1970s as a result of bipartisan federal legislation, has been by most measures an enormous success. For lots of poor families it’s become a way to count on at least getting one decent meal into their children, and when it disappears it’s catastrophic,” (page 224) In the essay “Schools out for the Summer” Quindlen writes about the problem of hunger in the USA.

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The article “The Real Problem With Lunch” written by Bettina Elias Siegel is about the everlasting struggle of replacing unhealthy American public school lunches with better alternatives. She’s reaching out to parents, students, school representatives, and other influential people to change how American society views junk food, in hope that it will affect choices children make about lunches at school. How convincing is Siegel’s argument overall? Although she doesn’t fully address the strides made already by public schools to better their lunches, she strategically balances her use of argumentative tools: pathos, ethos, and logos. She uses statistics, facts, and empathy to urge her point of bettering lunches for children.

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Marion Nestle divides this book into five parts. Part one, undermining dietary advice, talks about how confusing it is for Americans to understand nutrition and what to eat; it talks about how hardly any American knows the federal dietary guidelines. The major source of nutrition knowledge comes directly from the media and indirectly from the food industry itself. Part one describes how the nutritional guidelines are not based solely on scientific evidence, but on political compromise. Part two, working the system, discusses how food companies lobby Congress, use personal connections with legislators and agency officials who can promote regulations, and use nutrition experts to approve their products.

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In “What’s wrong with school lunches”,Ann Cooper who is the director of nutrition services in the school presents the problem of children’s eating. In her perspective, public need to have an awareness of the importance of eating a healthy diet and children should be educated by their parents and teacher to have a healthy eating habit. Besides, government need to pay more attention on food safety,because the source of food that is contributes to sickness of children. The one of the effective ways for solute the problem will be the organic food. Growing up nature food which is plant without agricultural chemical and feed to children.

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By not spending more money on healthier food the school could spend the money on new textbooks or even tablets for students that will better their education and most likely higher grades. Consequently brightening the future and opening new doors for the students that they most likely would not have been achievable without the better education and higher grades. Another important factor that needs to be accounted for is the school environment and the mood of the school. By taking away students favorite foods it may have a very negative affect on the school.

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To begin with, prior to World War II, school lunches lacked in nutrition. It was after World War II that the government noticed this. In an effort to change this, they passed the National School Lunch Act. This act basically made lunches in schools healthier. Nutritional value of lunches rose dramatically after the act was put into effect.

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For all the cuts that have been made to school foods, six percent has not been a big decrease. School lunches don’t provide any nutritional value for the kids. The purpose for a school lunch is to provide kids with a dependable lunch that has good proportional amounts and nutrition value. The obesity rates need to drop higher and faster in the next ten years if they want to make cuts out of our meals and the meals need to be proportioned to size.

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This opinion piece shows the new school lunch programs intent to have healthier lunches has proved otherwise. Michelle Obama created this program to help childhood obesity and hunger by making school lunches healthier and more available to kids in poverty. This program expires in September and this article believes the new program will need to be changed to stay in effect. First, the piece expresses how much is spent of the Hunger-Free Kids act, which is $12 billion a year and an additional $3 billion for the breakfast program. This program covers almost half of American kids.

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Following the "Cause and Effect" theory, the change of school lunch has a negative effect regarding cafeteria workers. It is their job to serve the students lunch for the whole of lunchtime. As less students buy lunch , the need of cafeteria workers diminishes. The school board will then have no choice but to remove them from their jobs. With the loss of their jobs, the workers will then have no choice but to look for another working environment.

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“But her school lunch control regulations, which were passed in the name of healthy eating have been an utter failure” (Gonchar). The Healthy and Hunger- Free Kids Act was supposed to gives kids a better school lunch, yet it has failed. The ultimate result was that kids are not eating their lunches and money is being put to waste. “It’s great that schools are trying to make school lunches better, they’re not doing a very good job about it, starving kids at school isn’t exactly a way to get kid’s obesity down” (Arit John). Even though school are trying to make improvements the steps they are taking are actually worsening the situation.

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To begin with, the taste alone of school lunches is beyond unsatisfactory. The meals provided by public schools are not appetizing. There exists a tangible disconnect between the enticing, nutritious meals advertised on the school board’s menus and what the students actually receive—pathetic portions and lukewarm meals slapped onto a tray. Children’s complaints about school lunches are often seen as trite. However, while common, they are not any less accurate.

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Have you ever wondered if you could ever change the school lunches in the Public schools? Well you’re not the only one, many other people thought about changing the way you eat at lunch and started to change it. Some trials have failed but some have succeeded at the trail for their public school. But some administrators what it to come to all schools, for the fact that they are losing money because kids stopped eating lunches at school.

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