Healthy School Lunches - what's it costing us?
Let's talk about the LATEST STUDIES (April 2019) on Healthy School Lunches & Breakfasts. Should kids be able to eat hog-wild or a healthy meal? Who is to blame? The parents? The kids? When one-third of our Nation's children are overweight or obese; what is it costing us?
As caregivers to the youth in our community, there must be an understanding that we have a problem at HOME and at SCHOOL with a child's "food environment" — which includes social, cultural, political, economic and environmental factors. All of these affect the pattern of childhood obesity.
The support of milk, juices, and sugary food have led to childhood obesity rates in America that have tripled over the past three decades. An example, milk is NOT A NUTRITIONALLY valuable food. Yet the Dairy Industry is an extraordinarily powerful lobby. Do you know what a Dairy Checkoff is? It is a mandatory tax, about $3.31 per metric ton of milk, to pay for a comprehensive strategy to increase human consumption of milk and dairy products and to reduce dairy surpluses. Nothing healthy here, it's about getting consumers to purchase their product. Have you seen their advertising? Is this government tax marketing to children? Is it healthy? No, it is not; an 8 oz. carton of flavored milk contains about 64 calories of added sugar. Consuming 2 drinks per day adds 128 calories to a child’s diet, which leads to a total of 23,040 extra calories from added SUGAR per school year.
The NATIONAL goal should be to ensure that all of America’s children have access to safe, nutritious, and balanced meals.
Here are the most recent school lunch findings:
Students and parents alike most commonly cited hunger (35 percent of students and 17 percent of parents), liking the food (25 percent of students and 21 percent of parents), and convenience (14 percent of students and 24 percent of parents) as reasons for eating a school lunch.
Over 60 percent of the elementary and middle schools and about 50 percent of the high schools that did not meet the calorie requirements prepared lunches that were within 10 percent of the calorie targets.
Schools found it challenging to meet the new requirement to include only whole grain-rich grain products in school meals. Only about one quarter (27 percent) of weekly lunch menus met the new requirement.
Sadly-- desserts, snacks, and other beverages were the most commonly consumed competitive foods against a healthy meal. Gee really?
For a HEALTHY SCHOOL LUNCH, the mean reported cost to produce a reimbursable lunch was $3.81, compared to the STANDARD Federal free lunch subsidy of $3.32. The FULL costs to produce HEALTHY reimbursable lunches was even higher.
The ultimate goal is to decrease the proportion of children and adolescents who are overweight or obese. There are several ways to support the comprehensive plan:
What is the END GAME COST for trying to pinch pennies and not funding healthy school meals? A study in 2016 looked at the Medical Care Costs of Obesity in the United States "annual medical spending attributable to an obese individual was $1901 ($1239-$2582) in 2014 USD, accounting for $149.4 billion at the national level." That is your financial burden, not HEALTHY SCHOOL MEALS.
As caregivers to the youth in our community, there must be an understanding that we have a problem at HOME and at SCHOOL with a child's "food environment" — which includes social, cultural, political, economic and environmental factors. All of these affect the pattern of childhood obesity. The support of milk, juices, and sugary food have led to childhood obesity rates in America that have tripled over the past three decades. An example, milk is NOT A NUTRITIONALLY valuable food. Yet the Dairy Industry is an extraordinarily powerful lobby. Do you know what a Dairy Checkoff is? It is a mandatory tax, about $3.31 per metric ton of milk, to pay for a comprehensive strategy to increase human consumption of milk and dairy products and to reduce dairy surpluses. Nothing healthy here, it's about getting consumers to purchase their product. Have you seen their advertising? Is this government tax marketing to children? Is it healthy? No, it is not; an 8 oz. carton of flavored milk contains about 64 calories of added sugar. Consuming 2 drinks per day adds 128 calories to a child’s diet, which leads to a total of 23,040 extra calories from added SUGAR per school year.
The NATIONAL goal should be to ensure that all of America’s children have access to safe, nutritious, and balanced meals.
Here are the most recent school lunch findings:
Students and parents alike most commonly cited hunger (35 percent of students and 17 percent of parents), liking the food (25 percent of students and 21 percent of parents), and convenience (14 percent of students and 24 percent of parents) as reasons for eating a school lunch.
Over 60 percent of the elementary and middle schools and about 50 percent of the high schools that did not meet the calorie requirements prepared lunches that were within 10 percent of the calorie targets.
Schools found it challenging to meet the new requirement to include only whole grain-rich grain products in school meals. Only about one quarter (27 percent) of weekly lunch menus met the new requirement.
Sadly-- desserts, snacks, and other beverages were the most commonly consumed competitive foods against a healthy meal. Gee really?
For a HEALTHY SCHOOL LUNCH, the mean reported cost to produce a reimbursable lunch was $3.81, compared to the STANDARD Federal free lunch subsidy of $3.32. The FULL costs to produce HEALTHY reimbursable lunches was even higher.
The ultimate goal is to decrease the proportion of children and adolescents who are overweight or obese. There are several ways to support the comprehensive plan:
- development of effective behavioral, social, and environmental interventions to increase dietary intakes of fruits and vegetables;
- increase the variety of vegetables in the diet and decrease dietary intakes of foods high in solid fats and added sugars;
- increase the number of children who meet guidelines for television viewing and computer use;
- increase physical activity in children.
What is the END GAME COST for trying to pinch pennies and not funding healthy school meals? A study in 2016 looked at the Medical Care Costs of Obesity in the United States "annual medical spending attributable to an obese individual was $1901 ($1239-$2582) in 2014 USD, accounting for $149.4 billion at the national level." That is your financial burden, not HEALTHY SCHOOL MEALS.
