Improving School Lunches Locate Classical Argument Paper:

Improving School Lunches Locate Classical argument paper: The need for improvements in school lunches Children consume over 50% of their calories in school. This surprising statistic underlines the importance of providing healthy school lunches to our nation's students. However, the nutritional quality of school lunches remains, by any standard, abysmal. A recent study in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine "found girls who participated in the school lunch program gained weight faster than those who did not participate" (Flynn 2011). Given these sobering statistics, the U.S.

government recently set new standards for the meals served as part of the National School Lunch Act to make student's lunches lower in calories and healthier. Many of these changes were controversial. However, given the extremity of the nation's obesity crisis, particularly in low-income communities where children rely upon free or subsidized lunches in school (and in some cases, breakfast as well), it is vital that these changes are enacted and expanded upon.

The changes did not go far enough and are only the first step in changing the way children eat in the U.S. The first changes were to reduce the number of calories eaten by schoolchildren. Currently, there are no maximum calorie limits, only minimum standards. But now the "minimum and maximum calorie levels would be 350 to 500 for K-5 breakfast, and 550-650 for K-5 lunch; 400-550 for 6-8 breakfast and 600-700 for 6-8 lunch; and 450-600 9-12 breakfast and 750-850 for 9-12 lunch" (Flynn 2011).

Initially, when the school lunch program was instituted to provide low-cost or free lunches to indigent students, the major problem facing the nation was that some children did not have enough calories to sustain themselves throughout the day. Before the National School Lunch program, some students could not even afford milk. One 1920s guide to mothers from Good Housekeeping noted that when: "milk is sold to the children as a small sum per half pint bottle. The results in both instances were immediately beneficial.

The children gaining in weight, in improved color, and eventually in keener intelligence, In one city, it has been found that the average child completes the eight customary years of school twenty-five percent, sooner than is usually done." When the National School Lunch program was instituted, weight gain was seen as a goal to improve children's health, but now weight reduction is more important. The idea that more calories are automatically linked to better nutrition has changed.

A casual scan of the calorie counts at any corner store will inform the purchaser that it is very easy to buy a large amount of calories for a relatively small amount of money. Unfortunately, those calories tend to be mainly starch and sugar, rather than nutrient-dense. Limiting calorie intake is essential to curtail obesity. Eating more fruits, vegetables, and lean protein is vital to maintaining a healthy weight, and fresh fruits and vegetables are more expensive, calorie for calorie, than fast foods and snack cakes.

Although the federal government cannot control what students eat at home, it can strive to foster healthy habits while they are still growing up. Other changes designed to reduce calories include ensuring that only fat-free and low-fat milk will permitted to be served to students. However, chocolate, strawberry and other 'flavored' milks will still be permitted under the new guidelines, presumably because it is assumed that children will not drink milk otherwise.

Even this allowance really does not meet the stated aim to encourage children to develop healthy tastes and habits. Of course, some children may drink flavored milk at home, but ideally the school lunch program will encourage them to have other tastes, preferences, and habits. Just as children are encouraged to read more difficult books in school than they might at home, they must also be encouraged to appreciate flavors that are not overly sweet and artificial.

Flavored milks can have up to 28 grams of sugar per serving (Milk facts sheet, 2011, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution). The new guidelines will at least force students to be offered more fruits and vegetables, and in less processed forms. Both fruits and vegetables must be served under the new reforms, to encourage schools to offer fruits and vegetables in other forms than apples slices dipped in caramel sauce. "No more than half the daily fruit requirement can be juice; only 100% juice is acceptable" (Flynn 2011).

Fruit leather and other dessert-like fruits cannot be offered, and there are now five subgroups of vegetables that must be offered once a week (Flynn 2011). It is argued that children will not eat these meals, and will simply bring lunches from home or go hungry if healthier meals are served.

However, the transition will take time -- although students may complain at first, just as children from the previous generation came to regard chicken nuggets as 'normal,' the next generation will have its palate shaped to learn to like broiled chicken breasts in healthier sauces. For example, when some school districts banned flavored milk, "they say that although consumption drops initially, once the kids get used to it, the consumption goes back up again" (Milk facts sheet, 2011, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution).

It is not just eleven-year-olds who are 'pushing back' on new guidelines to make school lunches healthier. In a recent bill introduced in Congress, there was an attempt to eliminate specific aspects of the recently-proposed changes, such as limiting the use of potatoes so that these starches (including French fries) could not be served every day, and decreasing sodium and increasing whole grains. "The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now.

USDA had wanted to only count a half-cup of tomato paste or more as a vegetable, and a serving of pizza has less.