School lunches Part of the equation for childhood obesity? For the majority of areas, I think so. We are lucky to have a…

I work as a school cook and our school has 300 kids from k4-grade12 and we offer a hot lunch everyday. Elementary get milk and cereal every morning. Our lunches are:

chicken soup

Spaghetti and garlic toast

Sandwiches and fruit

Hot dogs/ fries

Chicken, rice, veggies

Grilled cheese and veggies

I can't think of them all but this is some, we try not to use the deep fryer more than 2 times a month.

No pop junk food allowed to sell, and they also get an afternoon snack which is usually a fruit.

Only thing that sucks is we are getting 0.98 cents per child a day in our budget!! so it's hard to shop on this low budget. And most children are still hungry after lunch. I think because kids get no restrictions at home and they ask for seconds or thirds. Well where I'm from Anyways. But if someone has a menu I can pick off, I would love to make this September more healthy and have better options than the same ol stuff I've been doing for the past 5 years!!

When we lived in Toronto, my dd went to a daycare and a private Montessori school that was catered by this company that provided homemade ridiculously healthy meals. The kids were hesitant at first but soon grew to love all their new foods.

Dds new school in our new city does not do regular school lunches but has a few days a month with specialty meals where one day is pasta, one day is pizza, one day is smoothies and wraps and another is sushi. They aren't always the healthiest but its nice to have a break from making lunch for one day every few weeks. The rest of the time I pack lunches , which never get eaten , that are always healthy. In dds school, out of 300 kids, there is not a single child that I would consider obese and only maybe 2 or 3 that I would consider kinda chunky.

I dunno, growing up, school lunches were sometimes questionable and hardly "healthy". There actually weren't that many overweight kids in my school either. I think it's the lack of exercise. I feel like play time is slowly being replaced with electronics.

The school I work for has nothing fried and they have drastically cut back on the junk food since I was in school. However nothing is from scratch its all from a can. I really don't know how much better tator tots are for someone baked in the oven instead of deep fried. Everything is also government funded.

My kids can't eat school lunches due to severe food allergies. But from what I've seen the food is pretty junky. The kids eat a lot of pizza! Drink chocolate milk. Even get sweets with lunch.

I have to say that I seriously doubt school lunches are the reason children are obese. It has more to do with the lifestyle at home in my opinion. Yes cutting out pe and recess would be detrimental, but if I knew my kid wasn't getting the exercise at school, they'd be forced to be outside for a good amount of time before they can do anything inside.

The lunches may not be healthy, but shouldn't the meals at home somewhat make up for that? I feel its more about the majority of what is consumed.

This thread is making me look into what they will be serving my son when he starts kindergarten this year.

At the high school the kids get a snack break. Which consists of fresh baked cookies 3 for 1$ and milk. No fruit or veggie option, just cookies. (Which are very tasty but seriously doesn't need to be an every day thing.)

I will say that the culinary component of one of our high schools was amazing....I would have eaten from their menu every day....yum! They were doing a specialized curriculum & hands on training for the kiddos in that program!!!

Hugs!

Ds isn't in school yet, but my parents only allowed us to eat school lunch if we specifically asked to (which was almost never). That stuff looked so gross! My mom had a home cooked meal for us every night, and though we may have been dirt-floor-poor, we always ate healthy. I brought my lunch to school from kindergarten through my senior year, my little sister from kindergarten through 10th grade (then she went to an awesome arts high school where other students prepared the food). We were odd kids anyway. By 3rd grade I was a vegetarian and refused to eat any kind of sandwich so my mom would send me with bagels, salad, or vegetable soup.

But yes, I think it's contributing to childhood obesity and will be sending ds with a packed lunch when it's time for him to go to school.

When I was in school we had access to a soda machine all day every day, and we were served Pizza Hut pizza once a week. Every other day, almost quite literally, was 'chicken'. Served in different forms. Popcorn chicken, chicken patties, they even tried putting it in the shape of hotdogs and putting it on a bun. You ain't foolin me dude, that's still chicken. always breaded and fried. Our lunches were awful. Only decent part was the 'salad bar'. Which was lettuce, cheese, and choice of dressing. -__-

I worked in a school kitchen, recently quit. Everything we did was made from scratch, pizza was available but it has to be properly portioned and whole wheat. Some of the food was really really good. Others...not so much. And we were not allowed to do French fries. They had to be sweet potato fries and they were really good.

Our elementary, middle school and high school all served garbage. Then they served more garbage that you could buy in middle school and high school (the good curly fries) but as a kid and teen if it didn't taste like crap and was junk I was all about it. In high school I drank Pepsi everyday and ate junk food all day in classes (no teacher said anything because I'm skinny lol) then ate junk at lunch. The only water I ever drank was berry propel and usually during softball.

In elementary school we had gym everyday. And recess 1x a day. In middle school we just got a 30 minute lunch and only got gym if it was on our schedule. Luckily for me I got it 2/3 years because I loved gym. It was pretty much free time. In high school you only get gym 1 year unless you fail.

Thinking about it now its pretty despicable what is allowed to be served. Now I drink water all of the time. I don't eat healthy 24/7 but I eat A LOT heather now. I don't drink any pop, it's actually pretty gross. So hopefully when my child is of school age some improvements are made.

Oh! and within the last two years of high school they took out the majority of unhealthy stuff from the vending machines and put in a vending machine that had milk and yogurt (as well as premade milkshakes)

The first and second elementary schools I went to were in the same district. A lot of lower class people, many kids with free lunch (nothing wrong with that, I just think it attributed to the quality of food). They served pizza one day a week, broccoli, ravioli, green beans, fruit (both fresh and canned), hamburgers on fridays (but they were actually decent tasting), chili, chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes with or without gravy, carrots, etc. While it may not have been the HEALTHIEST of foods, they were actually decent tasting.

When I was in 4th grade, we moved to a "rich" town, meaning most people were upper class. Mondays and Fridays were still pizza and burgers, but they tasted like frozen CRAP. Cold chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes and gravy that also tasted like ass. Never even ate food from the cafeteria in middle school, but there were vending machines stuffed with candy, chips and cookies, but the drink machines only had minute maid drinks, not cokes.

In high school, there were four lines to get food from.

One line was chicken sandwiches. Spicy or regular. Both fried. Served with curly fries.

One line was strictly salad.

Another one was your normal chicken nuggets, mac and cheese. Mashed potatoes, fruit, veggies.

And the last one was always random stuff. Most of the time it was Chinese food.

We had vending machines with junk food and coke.

In elem school in the poorer community, we had pe three times a week, recess once a day and twice on fridays.

Once I was in 6th grade (elem school in the upper class community) we had pe everyday BEFORE anything. Then if we had pe that day, it was twice a day, in addition to recess daily plus twice on Friday.

The schools around here(even the expensive private schools) all serve pizza, chicken nuggets, hamburgers, and fries. Even if its baked its the prefab junk. The county I live in the director tried going in a healthy direction. She got rid of the slushy machines and soda for middle school but that's all. Parents, students, and teachers got mad and fought the decision

when she wanted to take the vending machines, and wanted the schools to make food from scratch.

So yes I think school lunches contribute to obesity.

I used to never eat lunch at school. It didn't always taste bad, but yes, it was pretty much always greasy and fried. When I was in high school though, they started to have some while wheat sub sandwiches and salads, and they were ok, but they were much more expensive.

Oh and the stuff that's 0 points they are allowed more of because its healthy so it doesn't count towards their total lunch points.

My sister gets free lunch because of having 3 kids and getting food stamps so they buy almost everyday as well as long as it isn't something that they don't eat.

I'm still pregnant but my sister has 3 school aged kids. Their elementary school bases everything on a points system. Like entree is so many point (say 2) them sides/veggies are like 1 point etc. Some stuff is 0 points cause its healthier. They need to have so many points to "complete" their lunch. I think like 5. They do serve lots of veggies but they aren't cooking everything from scratch. Its a start tho. They also get recess twice a day and their elective class (gym, music, art, library) are on a 12 day cycle I believe and they have gym 4 times in 12 days, music and art are 3 and library is 2.

@viva.labam I graduated from a Texas school and in order to graduate you have to have two years of pe credits, only crap part is you can Exchange them for work co-op.

This post reminded me of our delicious cafeteria poutine in highschool.. Ugh, I'm drooling now.

No input for this post tho, I don't have any school aged kids.

I think the candy and soda tons of parents feed their children is the main cause of childhood obesity, that and less outside time both at home and at school.

Lunches in our district are awful. My children pack everyday. This way I know what they are eating, and I pack things that I know they like and will eat. If they bought, I know they would only eat a few bites of the lunch. Who wants mushy green beans and soggy pizza?

In high school our lunches were atrocious. Pizza and fries... with cheese sauce!! Ugh. Middle school was pretty bad too. My elementary school served good stuff from what I remember. Actual meat and veggies.

My rant on this subject.

This is our 2nd year here in S. Texas. We moved here from Utah.

Our school district in Utah had as healthy as you can possibly get for school lunch & lunch was

a hour long. No snack bars, vending machines, nothing.

They served a well rounded breakfast as well every morning.

Not impressed at all with this school district. Mind you we researched and choose to move to the best, top school district in the area. They fail big time.

I have gone to eat with my kids and the food is atrocious. The taste the smell. Nothing is balanced nutritionally speaking.

Pizza is served 3 x per week. Lots of food frozen when you bite into it & outdated. The fruit is mostly unedible when they do provide it & the bread stale.

Besides the main lunch line they have snack bar. Which is chips, soda, candy, nachos, ice cream, more pizza Ect...things they can buy in addition to main lunch. It's called a snack account. All school levels primary- high school.

This is just disgusting and ridiculous to me.

Not to mention the parents that come to eat school lunch with their kids or any event's that involve eating school lunch with your children throughout the year, you will find the lunch room littered by Whataburger bags. ( which is a Texas based fast food joint)

Breakfast they are not allowed to sit in lunch room they are to get them from their classes in a portable coolers. Which usually consists of more junk breakfast like pop tarts, pancake on a stick, bags of cookies. It makes me so mad.

Lunch is alotted 30 minutes to eat. where on more than one occassion all 4 of my kids have came home hungry because they were still waiting in line to be served & time ran out. No lunch at all.

What kind of school does that?

Seriously, a good breakfast & lunch are necessary in a learning environment and for developing brains.

We live in a very nice middle class area & I'm shocked to know our district is the one everybody here wants their kids,to go.

We do home lunches now!

And I want to go home! I'm clicking my ruby slippers as we speak!

Rant over! Whew, I feel better.

* Forgot to add P.E is not required after 7 th grade. It's a elective. Which it should be required until 12 th.

I don't have any kids in school but when i was in high school they really started pushing healthy lunches. In grade 9 they had pizza and fries, hamburgers you name it. Then as the years went on they slowly started phasing that stuff out, pizza was whole wheat and fries only a couple times a week, more salads and healthy foods. By the time I graduated they only had fries one day a week and were only allowed to make a certain amount, after those were gone they couldn't make anymore.

Our elementary kids get a choice of two different meals, some are healthier then others.. However, they get recess everyday & pe everyday as well.

I wasn't aware they had done away with recess? Wow. Sad.

My kids get 2 recesses plus PE 3 times a week. Their favorite PE week is when professional roller skaters come in and teach them all to roller skate and do tricks!

Not just the food, but the lack of PE and recess time too....PE used to be a 5 days per week class now 1-3 if you are lucky....recess was 2X per day and now if you get 1X per day, you are lucky!!!

Hugs for support!

Our school does nothing fried, everything is baked & the pizza is whole wheat & very good..thy also cook everything by scratch but they obviously are trying to make a change and that's good. My dd takes lunch everyday anyways so it doesn't bother me much.