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Stay
out of my
Kitchen!
Cafe
What’s
4
JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC / December 8, 2014
Evan Kafka (Lunch Lady); iStockPhoto.com (Background)
Y
ou may have noticed a few
things missing from your
school cafeteria lately. French
fries, deep-dish pizza, and vending
machines packed with chips,
cookies, and candy are gone.
The changes are part of the
Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
That law went into effect in 2012.
It says that school meals must meet
new nutrition standards.
To receive federal funding,
school districts have to limit the
amount of salt and fat in school
meals. They also have to serve
more fruits, vegetables, and whole
grains.
In middle schools, a lunch must
have fewer than 700 calories.
(Experts say that kids should eat
about 1,600 to 2,600 calories a
day, depending on their level of
physical activity.)
Supporters of the new standards
say that the changes will improve
kids’ health and help reduce
childhood obesity.
The problem? Some kids won’t
eat the healthy foods.
According to the School
Nutrition Association (SNA),
about 1 million kids have stopped
eating school lunches since the
standards went into effect. The
SNA represents 55,000 school
cafeteria workers and food
manufacturers nationwide.
The standards are now a hotly
debated issue in Washington.
eTeria Wars
the latest political battle in Washington? Your lunch.
Getty Images/iStockPhoto.com (Fries); Shutterstock (Michelle Obama); Getty Images (All other images)
Many critics want to do away with
them altogether. They say that
the federal government shouldn’t
decide what kids eat. That decision
should be left to parents and state
governments, they argue.
Some members of Congress
say that schools need more time
to figure out how to make healthy
foods taste good. Representative
Robert ­Aderholt, a Republican
from ­Alabama, is one of them.
He recently introduced a bill in
­Congress. It would let schools
t­ emporarily opt out of the rules.
Could that mean the return of
nachos, fries, and ­cheeseburgers?
Recipe for Disaster?
Students at Wallace County
High School in Kansas are vocal
opponents of the new rules. To
meet the standards, their school
shrank portion sizes of chicken
nuggets and other popular foods.
The teens voiced their anger
over the new meals by making a
four-minute video called “We Are
before
after
A typical school meal included
cheesy pizza, fried tater tots,
canned fruit, and whole milk.
Schools can still serve pizza—
as long as it has a whole-wheat
crust, low-fat cheese, and
low-salt sauce.
School cafeterias now
serve healthier options:
turkey sandwiches on
whole-wheat bread, baked
sweet potato fries, low-fat
or fat-free milk, and a lot
of fruits and vegetables.
Hungry.” It is based on the song
“We Are Young” by Fun. The
video has been viewed more than
1.4 million times on YouTube.
“Give me some seconds.
I need to get some food today.
My friends are at the corner store
getting junk so they don’t waste
away,” students sing. Behind
them, other students pretend to fall
over from weakness.
Patricia Montague, the head of
the SNA, is calling on Congress to
change some of the requirements.
She says the rule that keeps
schools from serving white rice
or pizza crusts made with white
flour is too strict. One of the
most common complaints
from students about the
new lunches is that wholewheat pizza crust tastes
like cardboard.
The SNA “supports
strong ­nutrition
standards,” Montague
tells JS. “But some of the
new rules go too far.”
Critics say that the
new law has had an
unexpected result.
Schools are now
wasting millions of
­dollars by serving
food that kids won’t
First Lady
eat. According to
Michelle
the SNA, about
Obama
champions
healthy eating.
continued on p. 6
December 8, 2014 / JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC
5
health problems, including heart
$3.8 million worth of produce is
disease and type 2 diabetes.
thrown away every day in schools
The U.S. Department of Agricul­
across America.
ture runs the national school lunch
Some school districts’ food costs
program. It says that 32 ­million kids
have also gone up. That’s because
still eat and enjoy school lunches
fresh, healthy ingredients usually
every day. Some of those students
cost more than processed foods.
qualify for free or reduced-price
Montague says that Congress­
meals. They aren’t able to get
man Aderholt’s proposal will help
healthy foods outside of school.
schools whose budgets have taken
First Lady Michelle Obama
a hit from the higher costs and the
championed the changes as part
fact that some kids aren’t buying
of her Let’s Move! campaign to
the healthy options.
end childhood obesity. She has
We are “asking for a few small
vowed to fight
changes to the rules
Aderholt’s proposal.
to help schools serve
Contest
She says that it is
healthy meals that
“unacceptable” to
keep hungry students
Should Congress keep
consider changing
nourished and
the school nutrition
standards, change
the standards.
happy,” she says.
them, or get rid of
“The last thing we
them altogether?
can afford to do right
32 Million
Send us a three-paragraph
now is play politics
Lunches
argumentative essay, using
evidence from the text and
with our kids’
Nancy Brown
your own experience to
health,” she says.
is the head of the
support your answer.
The First Lady
American Heart
Five winners will each
receive a $25 gift card!
worries that if
Association. She says
Go to www.scholastic.com/js for details.
Congress lets
that rolling back the
schools temporarily
standards would put
opt out of the
students at risk.
rules, the next
“Schools play
step would be to
a critical role in
end the standards
helping kids establish
altogether. The law
good eating habits,
is up for renewal
achieve academic
in September 2015.
success, and attain better longNancy Becker of the Center for
term health,” she tells JS. Trying
Science in the Public Interest says
“to suspend or abolish schoolthat dropping the standards would
meal standards will undermine
set a bad example for kids.
parents’ efforts to keep their
“Sometimes it’s hard to adjust
kids healthy, and put another
to new things, but that doesn’t
generation on the highway to
mean we give up,” she tells JS.
heart disease and stroke.”
“Congress should not give up on
According to the Centers for
kids or schools. They should help
­Disease Control and Prevention,
all schools provide good-tasting
about one in three U.S. kids are
meals that are healthy.”
overweight or obese. Studies show
that obesity can lead to serious
—Rebecca Zissou
JS
6
JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC / December 8, 2014
School Lunch through
▲
by the 1900s, some schools
started to sell lunches—often
for as little as a penny.
►
After the war, General
Lewis Hershey, the director of
the military draft, told Congress that
40 percent of rejected recruits were
turned away because of health
problems caused by poor
nutrition. In 1946, President
Harry S. Truman signed
the National School
Lunch Act, which
helped fund healthy,
low-cost meals for students.
▲
In the 1990s, many schools
struck deals with fast-food
companies, including McDonald’s
and Taco Bell, allowing them to sell
their products in cafeterias.
the years
▼
During the Great Depression of the
1930s, many people couldn’t afford to buy
food. This meant that farmers couldn’t sell their
produce. To help kids and farmers, the govern­ment
bought surplus crops and donated them to schools.
For years, schools made lunch with whatever they
were given—sometimes nothing but onions.
►
during World War II (1939-45),
U.S. leaders wanted to make sure that kids
grew up to be healthy and strong in case they ever
needed to join the military. This 1944 poster
encouraged kids to eat a nutritious school lunch.
►
In 2009, a group of
former military
leaders called obesity a
“threat to our national
security.” They said that
27 percent of 17- to
24-year-olds can’t serve in
the military because they’re
overweight. A year later,
President Barack Obama
signed the Healthy, HungerFree Kids Act, the first
major revision of schoolmeal standards in 15 years.
▼
page 6: Evan Kafka (Lunch Lady); Getty Images (Penny, Flexing Man); iStockPhoto.com (McDonalds); page 7: The Granger Collection (Great Depression); Courtesy of the
National Archives (Advertisement); Getty Images (Cereal, Ketchup); Chip Somodevilla/Pool/CNP/Newscom (President Barack Obama); Fern/Splash News/Corbis (Cheetos)
◄
The Child
Nutrition
Act of 1966,
signed by
President Lyndon
B. Johnson,
established
uniform nutrition
standards for
school meals. It
also created the
School Breakfast
Program.
in the 1980s, President Ronald
Reagan cut funding for school lunches
in an effort to reduce government spending.
With less money, many districts turned to
cheaper processed foods. To help schools
cut costs even further, the U.S. government
classified ketchup as a vegetable.
►
Beginning this
School year,
all snacks sold in vending
machines and school stores
must have fewer
than 200 calories and
no more than
230 milligrams of
sodium. (A 2-ounce bag
of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos
has 320 calories and
500 milligrams of
sodium.)
Katy Perry on
Halloween
December 8, 2014 / JUNIOR SCHOLASTIC
7