By Aaron Chen
If you're seeing those "school lunches around the world" posts on social media, chances are they come from a study conducted by Sweetgreen in a campaign to compare American school lunches against that of other countries. The catch? There's little information about where their information comes from - other sources circulating paint a different picture contrary to what's portrayed in these posts. Most notably, according to a 2013 New York Times Piece, Greece doesn't even offer subsidized public school lunches - leaving many wondering where those images of baked chicken over orzo with yogurt and pomegranate came from.
We haven't been able to locate other studies that would accurately represent an entire country in one plate, either, - so next time you see these posts circulating on social media, maybe it's time to take them with a grain of salt.
Why do American students think so poorly of school lunch?
A cursory overview of America's school lunch situation shows a myriad of differing opinions. No kid hungry surveyed 1000 students across the country and found that 64% of teens said the meals tasted good, and 55% said that they are of high quality, but a separate project called Fed Up which allowed students to collectively upload 7,319 pictures of their lunch from schools across the country and allowed users to vote on whether the lunch should be "kept" or "tossed", showed a far more negative side to school lunch - often revealing poorly put together prepackaged meals being served to students.
As for more expert opinions, assistant professor of nutrition at Merrimack and adjunct professor of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Juliana Cohen says the US has some of the best nutrition standards in the world for school meals, yet a 2009 investigation by USA today found that meat served in US schools wouldn't even meet fast food quality requirements and that the majority of "vegetables" eaten by children prior to 2010 food standard improvements were french fries.
Furthermore, cafeteria operators and directors of nutrition themselves are complaining about the poorly thought out regulations controlling food quality like the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act which merely mandated more fruits and vegetables and forced manufacturers to re-engineer products – and these new regulations prevented operators from serving more appealing courses like baguettes, pastas, jasmine rice, and lasagna - much less the sauces that go with them (Murphy), and now a shortage of labor means most meals consist of pre-packaged meals that are only heated shortly before serving.
Healthier foods can have an important impact on cognitive functioning and better academic performance, according to Cohen. A variety of sources such as the National Education Association, the Journal of School Health, and studies at UC Berkeley show that undernourished children have a hard time focusing, while healthier meals can be linked to improved concentration, behavior, and academic performance - so why are many school lunch programs seemingly lagging behind?
Spoiler alert: The answer is money.
Overall, there has been a distinct lack of available funds for school lunches - as it stands, federal subsidies are barely enough to cover the costs of food and labor. During the spread of COVID, there was a brief period where all public schools in America paid for school lunches, with food insecurity declining by 7% for at-risk households with children (North) - that is, until the funds dried up. After the pandemic food program expired, child poverty increased by 41%.
Debt is widespread among students due to a relatively high cutoff around $33,475, or usually quite a ways above the poverty line for most districts - leaving many families in need too high-earning to qualify for subsidies (North). Here's just a few numbers:
Feeding America found 89% of households with children are food insecure
The Education Data Initiative reports statewide debt can range from 4.3 million dollars in Wyoming to almost 300 million in Texas and 295 million in California, with one single district hitting 1.7 million dollars of debt accordion to the Washington Post
The EDI also reports that:
30.4 million children cannot afford school meals
The average debt per child is $180.6 yearly (That's right - students, sometimes elementary school children, are going into debt)
68.8% of surveyed schools had unpaid debt
20.1 million students receive free school breakfast vs 1.7 million receiving reduced price and 7.7 million for full price
11.8 million students receive free lunches vs 0.74 million receiving reduced price and 2.23 million for full price
More statistics that we haven't included can be found here. That's not all though, as federal sources are not even close to being able to pay off meal debts, over 50% of funding towards paying off debt came from charity, with parents and PTA/PTO funds contributing around another 30%. And when students can't afford to pay for meals, sometimes alternative meals offered by schools to those in debt paints a target on students' backs for bullying (Marzia). Sometimes no alternative is offered at all, leaving children to starve at school.
Overall, despite the quality of school lunches ranging wildly from mass-manufactured mystery meat to restaurant-quality dishes due to varying regulations across states as well as the financial resources available to each district, a deeper look into the American school lunch situation reveals a far more extensive issue than just quality. As the costs of making school meals rises above reimbursement rates, maybe it's time to start tackling America's schoolchild food insecurity problem head on.
Works Cited
Hanson, M. (2021, October 12). School Lunch Debt. Education Data Initiative. https://educationdata.org/school-lunch-debt
Marzia, A. (2023, April 18). Students are struggling with school lunch debt. Prism. https://prismreports.org/2023/04/18/students-school-lunch-debt/
Murphy, K. (2015, September 26). Why Students Hate School Lunches. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/sunday-review/why-students-hate-school-lunches.html
North, A. (2023, March 2). America’s school lunch crisis. Vox. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23618443/school-lunch-kids-pandemic-debt-shaming
Oberst, L. (2018, September 10). School Lunch In America: Why It’s Unhealthy And How You Can Improve It. Food Revolution Network. https://foodrevolution.org/blog/school-lunch-in-america/
Prothero, A. (2023, January 6). What Teens Think of Their School Lunches: 5 Takeaways From a National Survey. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-teens-think-of-their-school-lunches-5-takeaways-from-a-national-survey/2023/01
Rosenberg, L. (2023, March 9). Why School Lunches Are So Bad in the U.S. — And What They’re Like in Other Countries. Green Matters. https://www.greenmatters.com/food/school-lunches-america
Siegel , B. (2015, February 27). Why I’m Fed Up With Those Photos of “School Lunches Around the World.” Civil Eats. https://civileats.com/2015/02/27/why-im-fed-up-with-those-photos-of-school-lunches-around-the-world/
Storm, C. (2015, February 9). Here’s how school lunch in the US stacks up against what’s served in the rest of the world - Business Insider. Business Insider; Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/school-lunches-in-the-us-compared-to-other-countries-2015-2
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