Are School Lunches as Bad as People Say They Are?

Nachos are one of the most disliked meals among students.

School Lunches: Are They Getting Better?   

By Claire Ricketts and Emily Purkey

Are school lunches really as gross as kids say they are? Between the complaints from  students, the school budget cuts and the recent recession, what really happens in the kitchen?

Some options are healthier than others, such as fresh fruit.

School lunches have been one of the most debated about topics of late. Ever since Michelle Obama’s childhood obesity project, people have been doing whatever possible to keep the children of America healthy. And that’s where school lunches come in. Many individuals are highly concerned about the healthiness of these lunches, whether they think it has to do with the budget of the school district, the willingness of the government, or just the overall downturn of the economy. But are all lunches really as bad as people say?

    Take Josh, a student at Stoller Middle School in the Beaverton School District. His thoughts on the the lunches are a little ways down on the quality scale. “The people providing the lunches don’t care enough to buy us good, nutritious lunches.” However, when asked where that food came from, he couldn’t quite answer the question.
    Same with Patrick, another 7th grade student. Even though he doesn’t often buy a school lunch, he still has some thoughts of his own. “They look really gross because our school’s too cheap to buy any better stuff.” Many students shared the same view of thinking that the school didn’t really care about whether we liked what we were eating, but cared more about keeping food costs low. Yet Patrick couldn’t say exactly where the food came from either.
    So where is all this mystery food coming from  each day that everyone says is so gross?
    Turns out the answer came from Laura, one of the lunch ladies. “[The school lunches] are pretty much state run… They keep it as healthy as they can for the budget.” So if lunches come from the state, is it likely that they’re healthiness is just from the recent recession?
    Well, that would make sense and would put a lot of problems neatly in boxes. If we could definitely say that the quality of school lunches are because of the recession, then the concerned party would most likely just wait for the food to get better with time. However, it isn’t that simple.
    “I think the lunches are getting a lot better and healthier than when I had school lunch,” says Kimberly Huber, a teacher at Stoller Middle. Her reasoning is based on the fact that Stoller has a salad bar with fruits and vegetables, as well as whole wheat pizza crust and bread sticks. However, she is still not willing to buy a lunch herself. “Teachers have to pay $4.25 for a lunch, and I’m not willing to pay that.”
    Mrs. Conduff had the same idea when we asked for her opinion on school food. “I’ve never bought one,” she stated. The price is a large part of the reason for that. “I would say a lot of them look pretty good. They’re getting healthier.”
    According to Laura, our local lunch lady, there are no french fries, and the tater tots were removed a couple of years ago. The salad bar is a great addition, because it provides fresh vegetables and fruits. In fact, the size of the salad containers are going up next year, to encourage students to eat more fresh foods. The only fried meal is the chicken fried steak, and the one with the highest fat is the mac and cheese. In fact, even the pepperoni on the pizza is made of turkey.
    So lunches are getting better even though the budget is going down. We can at least say the the Beaverton School district is feeling the hard times, having to cut down on electives and fire 6 long-term teachers. It is ob
    Roberta Ballard, a mother of a student at Stoller Middle School, voiced her concern about who creates the lunches, and whether they have our best interests in mind. “I am concerned that meat and dairy agriculture have a big influence over school lunches. Meat and dairy get funded, so it’s cheaper to have them even though fruit and vegetables are healthier.”
    Majed, another Stoller student, sums it all up very well in a down-to-earth fashion. “[The lunches] are not as bad as most people say, but they are not as good as I hoped they would be. I think the whole country is having the same problem right now.” Hey, at least we’re trying to do our best.
    There are many ways to look at this problem. First of all, think about all the schools in your district. Now multiply that by the number of districts per city, and then times the number of cities per state. Can you imagine being responsible of feeding all of those hungry mouths? Then there’s the fact that the people making the lunches don’t get to have any feedback on them. The food is simply handed over to the lunch ladies, reheated, and good to go. There’s no room for students to ask for different food, whether their changes would be practical or not. Then there’s the budget and recession.
    It seems like all problems nowadays come back to the recession, but this may be one exception. The evidence points to the recent changes for the better being for a different reason. And what do we think? We think people have started to care more.
    School food may not taste that good. In fact, it’s rather greasy and tastes like it’s been frozen and reheated multiple times. But think about the amount of publicity it’s had. Childhood obesity was never a large problem until recently. And everyone is seeing the effects. It turns out that Michelle Obama must have raised a lot of awareness, because we are now seeing the effects of that too. It starts out simple, with the lack of french fries and the presence of salads, but hopefully throughout the years, we can expect a change for the better. Maybe if we’re lucky, we can even get lunches that are not only good for our bodies, but taste good too.
    School lunch is a big topic, partially because it is different all over the world. Everyone has a different opinion and everyone expects different things from the future of food at school. But one thing remains the same: we all want a change for the better, and that change is just around the corner. 


Word count: 1024