Report: School Lunches Need an Overhaul

(AP)  School lunches need more fruits, veggies and whole grains and a limit on calories, says a report urging an update of the nation's 14-year-old standards for cafeteria fare.

But the changes won't come cheaply.

Schools can't put just anything on a kid's lunch tray. They must follow federal standards, because the government's school lunch program subsidizes lunch and breakfast for needy kids in nearly every public school and many private ones.

Yet those standards are lacking, according to an Institute of Medicine report released Tuesday. They don't restrict the number of calories kids are offered, even though childhood obesity keeps climbing.

And they don't match up with the government's own dietary guidelines, which serve as the basis for the familiar Food Pyramid and were updated in 2005. They call for lots of fresh fruit and veggies and more whole grains.

"Today, overweight children outnumber undernourished children, and childhood obesity is often referred to as an epidemic in both the medical and community settings," Virginia Stallings, who chaired the report committee, wrote.

The proposed standards won't be cheap. The committee said breakfast prices could soar 20 percent, and lunch prices could rise by 4 percent.

That's daunting for school kitchens, which get less from the government, $2.68, than it actually costs to make each free lunch, about $2.92, according to a recent survey done by the School Nutrition Association. Combine that with rising food and fuel prices, and school kitchens are feeling the squeeze. Many have been raising prices for full-price meals.

The federal dollars "simply do not keep pace with rising costs on everything from food and labor to napkins and spoons," Dora Rivas, president of the association and head of food and nutrition in Dallas public schools, said in a statement last week.

The group is pressuring Congress to boost spending on school lunches. The Institute of Medicine committee agreed, saying the reimbursement should be raised to cover the cost of adding more fruits and veggies to the menu and substituting healthier whole grains for refined grains.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Obama administration would review the report as it writes new rules for school meals.

The report proposed new standards according to grade levels - kindergarten through five, six through eight and nine through 12. Among the recommendations:

Each week, kids should be offered 2 1/2 to 5 servings of fruit for lunch, depending on their grade, and at least five servings of fruit for breakfast. No more than half the fruit servings should be juice.

Kids should be offered 1 1/4 to 2 1/2 servings of vegetables for lunch, according to the report, which says that a half-cup of dark green and bright orange veggies and legumes like beans should be offered at lunch.

And kids should be offered nine to 13 servings of grain for lunch and seven to 10 servings of grain for breakfast, the report said. At least half of those servings should be whole whole grains such as whole wheat bread, oatmeal and brown rice.

That is what they should be offered - under the proposed standards, a kid would be allowed to turn down some items in the cafeteria line as long as they still took a certain number of fruits, juices or veggies to their seats.

The current standards only set minimum calorie levels, but the report says there should be a ceiling on calories, too. Lunch should be no more than 650 to 850 calories, and breakfast should be no more than 500 to 600 calories, depending on grade, the report said.

The Institute of Medicine is part of the National Academies, an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.

[schoolboard]

The health of our students will be a top issue for our board. We are going to review the food requirements to see if there is anything we can improve. We recently learned that our children's hamburger patties are boiled first, how about that? As a grandparent, I once ate lunch with my grandson some years ago. The grilled cheese was horrible and I could not eat it. It was a processed, microwaved sandwich. Many of our schools have gone to outsourcing the food they provide and I know that some of the food service providers try very hard to provide a quality product. Now that I am a school board member in my community I have an opportunity to make a difference and I have asked that this topic be placed on our agenda. It was great to see cbs featuring these articles. Thank you cbs!

[stuart-johns2]

They think the kids don't need calories. They just sit all day pretty much inactive. They don't even let the high school kids have recess anymore.

They can't even hold hands with each other and cuddle to burn off calories because that violates the zero tolerance policies. Sex in the janitors closet is out of the question. No lost calories there!

I mean these kids have it rough as it is and now they want to starve them to death. C'mon! Most of them are seriously overweight and they need those calories!

Ah but the football teams. They have it better off. First, they get recess! And they get to pat each other on the butt and not get expelled OR jailed! In fact, they get to grab all OVER each other with no penalty. The 330lb center ate the zero tolerance bar!

Secondly, they get the special high calorie intake drinks and snacks during every practice and game. The other kids were planning an insurrection, a protest at least, but they were too calorically deficient and so too tired to carry it off. Now the scuttlebutt is that the school government is trying to control them through caloric rationing.

A lawsuit is pending.

[cdimice]

Our children ARE NOT becoming OVERWEIGHT/OBESE by eating in school cafeterias, they are coming to our schools ALREADY Overweight/OBESE and until parents take control and provide their children with better snacks and meals at home, the place children have the most opportunity to snack and eat, they will continue to be OVERWEIGHT and OBESE....

[schoolboard]

I totally agree with your comment, however, I do think that just maybe schools can set an example for the right foods to eat and hopefully even expand the types of foods students eat. It is like exposure to other cultures; students who are exposed to diversity often want to learn another language, want to have careers abroad, or get involved in their international education. Their horizons have been expanded. I think it is the same with food. I am a school board member in a small community and even we have this problem and we are getting ready to deal with reviewing what our students eat and how much exercise they get. The days of PE are practically gone and in its place are sport programs that unfortunately cater to the "few". For me the health of our children will be a top issue. I am really glad to see this issue being addressed.