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It’s hard to imagine a topic more important than the health of our kids. Each and every day in America, some 31.6 million lunches are dished out to our youngsters at more than 99,000 schools and child-care institutions. For most of the 20 million or so kids who receive a free or reduced-price lunch, that is their day’s meal.
The quality of school meals has been hotly debated for years because one-third of U.S. kids are overweight or obese. A 2010 law directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set new nutrition standards for all food served in schools. The standards are designed to improve the health of about 32 million children who eat lunch at school every day and about 12 million who eat breakfast there as well. Kids consume about 30% to 50% of their daily calories while at school.
So how healthy is your school?
To find out
Have lunch with your child in the school cafeteria. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of your school lunch program, by experiencing the food your kids are taking in at school everyday.
To find out what other schools systems are doing to improve the lunches they serve our children check out the following sites:
www.cspinet.org/schoolfoodkit/
www.foodsecurity.org/policy/StateByStateFarmtoSchoolLegislation.pdf
