On any given workday, over 31 million lunches are served to children in school cafeterias. Part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) nutritional assistance efforts, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) aims to deliver affordable and nutritious meals to the nation’s schoolchildren. After all, food plays a key part in helping them learn, grow, and thrive.
To reach those who need it most, the federal and local governments work together to offer free lunch to children whose parents cannot afford to pay for it. But money is just one way a meal can be compensated for: the ‘free’ school lunch comes at other costs.
First, there are the health costs. At its inception, the NSLP was not designed as a social program. Instead, it was a response to agricultural overproduction and a surplus of farm produce, writes historian Susan Levine. The policymakers’ goal was to get rid of excess foods while supporting domestic production.
As a result, nutrition was of secondary concern to them: one year, eggs would be on the menu daily; another, they would hardly make an appearance. It wasn’t until the war, when politicians grew concerned about the ability of the nation’s men to fight, and until it became apparent hungry children don’t do well in classrooms they were newly required to sit in, that anyone took a serious look at what kids at school were actually eating.
By that time, it was too late. The program was already run like a business, and not even the introduction of nutritional standards helped. Today, these normatives are outdated – children snack rather than eat three square meals, and are less physically active, requiring fewer calories – and almost impossible to follow with the budget restrictions school lunch planners face.
The private industry was quick to offer solutions, but is more interested in profits than schoolchildren’s waistlines. Enriched and fortified chips and candies of otherwise dubious nutritional value appear in school cafeterias and vending machines, often a more popular choice with kids than apples. Frozen and convenience foods are replacing fresh meals cooked on premises. And the labyrinthine regulations of meal calorie contents coupled with cafeteria financial realities often mean adding more sugar to students’ plates is the only thing that can bring down its fat content, for example.
The food itself is not the only factor contributing to children’s undesirable health outcomes. Economist Rachana Bhatt finds the amount of time students have to enjoy lunch also matters. Students tight on time – they must squeeze all getting to the cafeteria, standing in line, eating their food, and cleaning up into their lunch break – might choose to skip the meal, leading them to overeat later, or eat quicker, leading them to consume more due to the delay in feeling full. Even if all school lunches offered healthy options, time would complicate their relationship with health outcomes: Bhatt found students who had less time for lunch were more likely to be overweight.
The lunch may be free when children choose their meal and sit down to eat it, then. But it may come at a substantial cost several years down the line, when a young adult is paying for diabetes medication and visits to the doctor to monitor their blood pressure.
Read Part II of “No Such Thing as a Free School Lunch.”
Teja Pristavec is a graduate student in the sociology department, and an IHHCPAR Excellence Fellow, at Rutgers University. She blogs at A Serving of Sociology, where this post originally appeared. Cross-posted at Pacific Standard.
Comments 9
Christine — May 14, 2014
"Bhatt found students who had less time for lunch were more likely to be overweight.
The lunch may be free when children choose their meal and sit down to eat it, then. But it may come at a substantial cost several years down the line, when a young adult is paying for diabetes medication and visits to the doctor to monitor their blood pressure."
So where is the study proving this causational relationship between school children being overweight as a result of policy and their developing diabetes and high blood pressure? Because that sort of seems like an "everybody knows" statement rather than actual study.
Bill R — May 15, 2014
All of the foods mentioned are ultimately paid for by tax dollars and I personally resent paying for junk food. Providing excess American grown farm products (also representing tax dollar subsidies), sans the 3-inch list of chemicals on the label, sounds like a neat idea to me.
Miss_Led — May 15, 2014
Students that eat meals served through the National School Lunch Program
are more likely to be at a healthy weight. Research published in the
August 2003 issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine
concluded that “girls in food insecure households had significantly
reduced odds of being at risk of overweight if they participated in the
[National School Lunch, School Breakfast and Food Stamp Programs].”
Research also found that students gain weight during
the summer months when they are at home and lose weight during the
school year when they are able to eat school meals. von Hippel, P. T., Powell, B., Downey, D.B., & Rowland, N. (2007). “The effect of school on overweight in childhood: Gains in children’s body mass index during the school year and during summer vacation.” American Journal of Public Health, 97(4), 796-802.
school lunches | Interesting World — May 16, 2014
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No Such Thing as a Free School Lunch: Part I | A Serving of Sociology — September 24, 2014
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