Lunch Fails Many Students

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saladFrom Your Health Journal…..”What a great article written by Scott Waldman for the Times Union called Lunch Fails Many Students. We have written here so many times about many schools not happy with the new lunch guidelines set by the government to help them eat healthier. Many students have been complaining that the new lunch programs are just not filling them up. They are hungry, weak, tired, and less energy – not being able to focus on academics. It is an ongoing problem. Now, a local school district became the first in the state to drop the federal lunch and breakfast program, and the change could signal a growing movement to shed food service mandates. Half the students dropped out of the lunch program, and those who ate it ended up throwing a lot of their vegetables in the trash. The new federal guidelines are part of the federal Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. They are aimed at reducing childhood obesity, a growing health crisis in America, where 30 percent of children are overweight or obese. Please take the time to visit the Times Union site (link provided below) to read the complete article.”

From the article…..

Some districts in state opt out of federal program citing healthy, but bland, choices

Carrots. Apples. A slice of ham and a slice of cheese between two pieces of wheat bread.

That’s one lunch option. The other is a salad of mixed greens dribbled with feta and steak sliced on the side.

Students at the Voorheesville school district overwhelmingly want the steak salad. In fact, it’s the most popular menu on the item, Superintendent Teresa Snyder said.

In November, the Voorheesville school district became the first in the state to drop the federal lunch and breakfast program, and the change could signal a growing movement to shed food service mandates. Snyder said the new mandate ended up blowing the school’s food budget and cost the school $30,000 in the first quarter alone, money that is hard to find in a district already strapped for money.

Half the students dropped out of the lunch program, and those who ate it ended up throwing a lot of their vegetables in the trash, Snyder said. It wasn’t that the students don’t like to eat vegetables; they just wanted them served more creatively than federal mandates allowed. And they also needed more meat.

“We have kids who are eating the government lunch and going out to buy sandwiches,” she said.

Snyder said more than a dozen districts reached out to her to find out more about dropping the federal lunch program. Niskayuna recently announced it would opt out of the lunch program by April 1, though it is keeping the breakfast program. Pittsford and Fairport in Monroe County and Mohonasen in Rotterdam also have approached the state Education Department about dropping out, a spokesman said, and other districts are looking into how they can drop it.

A spokeswoman for the federal Food and Drug Administration did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The new federal guidelines are part of the federal Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. They are aimed at reducing childhood obesity, a growing health crisis in America, where 30 percent of children are overweight or obese.

To read the full article…..Click here