Thompson School District Lunch Program Experience Study

A latent problem we struggle with, often times, living in a first-world country, is taking possessions and positive conditions for granted. We tend to forget how fortunate we are to be serviced in all aspects. This concept is especially hard for teenagers to keep in the back of their minds, simply because they are still growing and learning how to put others before themselves. An example of this has consistently been shown throughout a school year through attitudes in the cafeteria. High school students from a small community, who live in a sufficient, prosperous place, have the audacity to negatively put down food served to them in their school. Though they may not realize in the moment, students in this setting regularly over exaggerate the

Students also indicated in this study that good taste was more important to them when deciding what to eat for lunch. Nutritional value was found not as important to the children. This is important, because schools have been trying to provide healthier options for students to eat at lunch. If healthy food options has been going to waste, is there an influence of the food on students’ nutritional intake? The answer is yes. The Thompson School District Lunch Program Experience Study also revealed that their goal was for students to receive at least one third of their daily nutritional value from school lunch. It was believed that this goal would be met if students ate food they found appealing (Gordon et al.,

Figure 1.1 shows the percentages of students who purchase their lunch from school. 50% of the twenty-eight participants buy their lunch every day. Figure 1.2 shows 64% of the twenty-eight survey participants are aware of child food insecurities in America. Figure 1.3 shows that 36% believe that said individual does not over exaggerate poor quality of school lunches. 29% of students felt neutral on the subject. Figure 1.4 shows that 32% of students agree that their peers over exaggerate poor quality of school lunches. 25% of participants are neutral on the subject, and 25% strongly disagree that their peers over exaggerate poor quality of school