School Lunch

The American school lunch, long the butt of schoolyard jokes, is in for a nutritional makeover, fueled by concern over a national epidemic of childhood obesity and funded by the first hike in federal contributions in three decades. Starting next school year, U.S. schoolchildren will see changes in school lunch programs that are expected to bring fruits and vegetables, more whole grains and potentially smaller portions to every meal served...

Kids don't always eat their vegetables, but does showing them photos of veggies make them consume more? A research letter published online Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. employed about 800 kindergarten through fifth-grade students at one elementary school in Minnesota as study subjects. On two separate days in 2011 they received a school lunch; on the first day it was business as usual, as the kids helped themselves to the foods available. A few months later they had the same meal, but this time their trays were fitted with photographs of the vegetables they served: green beans and carrots.

When Michelle Obama and her fifth-grade partners harvested lettuce and peas in the White House garden this spring, she made a point of saying that American children are "not eating right and not moving their bodies at all," and she cited what they eat in school as part of the problem. On just about every schoolyard, the nation's obesity problem is apparent: A fifth of U.S. children are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nutrition advocates said the first lady's comments gave them increased hope that Congress would bolster the school lunch program when it takes up renewing the Child Nutrition Act, which expires Sept.

The American school lunch, long the butt of schoolyard jokes, is in for a nutritional makeover, fueled by concern over a national epidemic of childhood obesity and funded by the first hike in federal contributions in three decades. Starting next school year, U.S. schoolchildren will see changes in school lunch programs that are expected to bring fruits and vegetables, more whole grains and potentially smaller portions to every meal served...

I agree with you that nutrition is important, but to publish an entire article on school lunches without mentioning how the food tastes seems to me a shocking omission ("Experts Say School Lunch Programs Have a Lot to Learn" by Allan Parachini, June 17). Elsewhere in this same issue of View, kids are shown sporting designer clothes, and in Calendar L. N. Halliburton is touting stuffed grape leaves and Caesar salad, for adults, of course. Why can't we teach our children that the aesthetics of food are important also?

While Washington was consumed last week with the nuts and bolts of the Clinton Administration's plan to shrink the government gravy train, another announcement about a federal meat-and-potatoes issue went mostly overlooked. Specifically, there will be less meat and more potatoes in the nation's school lunches if U.S. Department of Agriculture officials can enact their proposed reforms in the $4-billion program. Under its "Fresh Start" initiative, USDA will double the 8.

Eight-year-old Oscar Rosales, who lives in a homeless shelter with his family, found himself in the unlikely position of testifying under bright lights at a federal hearing last week. Visibly stunned by his predicament atop a stage in the cavernous auditorium of Los Angeles' Fairfax High School, Rosales could barely utter a word before the large audience when the officials began asking his opinion.

President Harry S. Truman started the federally subsidized school lunch program in 1946. Those meals reduced hunger in America. Now the Clinton Administration wisely has embarked on a mission to cut some of the fat out of school lunches. Nearly 25 million children eat lunch at school. Most get an unnecessary extra helping of fat from menus that feature such favorites as hamburgers, fried chicken, french fries and pizza.

Ask 8-year-old Anya Desai what she likes best in her lunch box, and there is a long silence. A very long silence. "Well," she says finally, "I like carrots." Is there anything she doesn't like? Another long pause. "Sometimes I don't like tomato sandwiches." Try again: "Is there anything you see in other kids' lunches that you'd like to have?" "Well, sometimes I see things I'd like to have, but they're not too healthy, like fruit roll-ups and candy bars." Anya's mother has another story.

America's schoolchildren will eat healthier lunches if schools lock up the candy and soda machines and put more fruits and vegetables--and fewer fatty foods--on the cafeteria menu, a panel of experts said today. The unofficial Citizens Commission on School Nutrition also urged a sharp increase in funding for the school lunch program, which feeds about 24 million children a day.

It's lunchtime at Van Nuys High School and students stream into the cafeteria to check out the day's fare: black bean burgers, tostada salad, fresh pears and other items on a new healthful menu introduced this year by the Los Angeles Unified School District. But Iraides Renteria and Mayra Gutierrez don't even bother to line up. Iraides said the school food previously made her throw up, and Mayra calls it "nasty, rotty stuff. " So what do they eat? The juniors pull three bags of Flamin' Hot Cheetos and soda from their backpacks.

When it comes to school lunches, federal officials apparently can't see the pizza for the tomato paste. A congressional vote that slightly affected the nutritional content of federally subsidized lunches has prompted cries of outrage because it blocked two proposals by the Obama administration. The whole brouhaha led to silly accusations that the federal government will now count pizza as a vegetable. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, as part of a laudable effort to boost the nutritional quality of school lunches served free or at reduced cost to 31 million children, sought to limit the times children were served potatoes to two per week, and to define a serving of tomato paste as a half-cup.

Settle down, everyone, and pay attention. This is National School Lunch Week, a time when we pay tribute to the school lunch. We could take this opportunity to disparage the school lunch, but so many other people have done that already, like chef Jamie Oliver and Sarah Wu, whose book "Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project -- How One Anonymous Teacher Survived a Year of School Lunches" arrived last week. You may remember Wu as Mrs. Q., who blogged about her dedication to eating an entire year of sometimes dubious lunches.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon announced his resignation Friday, following through on his pledge to quit if voters failed to cast ballots in a city referendum that was invalidated due to a low turnout. "I will fulfill my duty by resigning to minimize the controversy in political circles," he said at a City Hall press conference. "I believe this is the will of the citizens. " In recent days, Oh had demonstrated that he was far off the mark when it came to gauging voter preferences. The 50-year-old mayor, once considered a candidate for next year's presidential election, on Sunday gave an emotional press conference in which he wiped away tears, vowing to step down if voters did not respond to his call to support his agenda.

Call it astute politicking or a career-damaging blunder, a case of bad acting and brinkmanship rarely seen even in a nation known for its emotional roundhouse-punch politics. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon wants to limit free school lunches to poor children and take students from wealthy families out of the gratis cafeteria line. And he warns that if voters don't back his agenda in a Wednesday referendum, he's going to quit his post. Or, as critics put it, collect his marbles in a huff and stalk off the playground.

When the National School Lunch Program began in 1946, the idea was to get nutritious food into the stomachs of malnourished children from low-income families. Ironic, then, that these days the school lunch program is being scrutinized for its role in contributing to the growing problem of childhood obesity in America. The latest report was published online this week by the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. It concludes that girls who participate in the National School Lunch Program gain weight at a faster clip than other girls from low-income families who do not get the subsidized lunches (and sometimes breakfasts)

Meals containing less fat and more fruits and vegetables will be on school lunch menus this fall under new government dietary rules. Congress voted in 1994 to require school meals to reflect the government's dietary guidelines but allowed two years for preparations. Most school districts, perhaps 80%, will try to meet the new regulations this fall, according to informal assessments.

The long-awaited federal proposal on reforming government-subsidized school lunches was criticized on several fronts even before its formal release Wednesday in Washington. The plan, which was hailed as a major reform by U.S. Department of Agriculture officials, actually did not address some of the most controversial aspects of food service in the nation's elementary and secondary schools.

Children can be hard-core food lovers -- just not with foods you want them to love. Schools in Chicago and across the nation are learning how hard it is to make lunches more nutritional without giving "healthy" a bad rap. "If they're going to feed us healthy, they need to feed us something good that's healthy," Mijoy Roussell, a sixth-grader at Claremont Academy who was skipping lunch in favor of a packet of candy, told the Chicago Tribune....

The first legislation in 30 years to significantly increase the number of needy children who can receive subsidized meals at school was on its way to President Obama ? one of the last victories likely to be scored by the Democrats' soon-to-vanish majority in the House. The $4.5-billion bill was approved 264 to 157 on Thursday, with 17 Republicans joining in support. Obama was expected to move quickly to sign the measure into law. The measure, which boosts more nutritious meals for children in low-income families and provides a subsidized outlet for surplus farm products, has long commanded bipartisan support.