essays about school lunch

How the quality of school lunch affects students’ academic performance

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, michael l. anderson , mla michael l. anderson associate professor of agricultural and resource economics - university of california, berkeley justin gallagher , and jg justin gallagher assistant professor of economics - case western reserve university elizabeth ramirez ritchie err elizabeth ramirez ritchie ph.d. graduate student - university of california-berkeley, department of agricultural and resource economics.

May 3, 2017

In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. The main goal of the law was to raise the minimum nutritional standards for public school lunches served as part of the National School Lunch Program. The policy discussion surrounding the new law centered on the underlying health reasons for offering more nutritious school lunches, in particular, concern over the number of children who are overweight. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that one in five children in the United States is obese.

Surprisingly, the debate over the new law involved very little discussion as to whether providing a more nutritious school lunch could improve student learning. A lengthy medical literature examines the link between diet and cognitive development, and diet and cognitive function. The medical literature focuses on the biological and chemical mechanisms regarding how specific nutrients and compounds are thought to affect physical development (e.g., sight), cognition (e.g., concentration, memory), and behavior (e.g., hyperactivity). Nevertheless, what is lacking in the medical literature is direct evidence on how nutrition impacts educational achievement.

We attempt to fill this gap in a new study that measures the effect of offering healthier public school lunches on end of year academic test scores for public school students in California. The study period covers five academic years (2008-2009 to 2012-2013) and includes all public schools in the state that report test scores (about 9,700 schools, mostly elementary and middle schools). Rather than focus on changes in national nutrition standards, we instead focus on school-specific differences in lunch quality over time. Specifically, we take advantage of the fact that schools can choose to contract with private companies of varying nutritional quality to prepare the school lunches. About 12 percent of California public schools contract with a private lunch company during our study period. School employees completely prepare the meals in-house for 88 percent of the schools.

To determine the quality of different private companies, nutritionists at the Nutrition Policy Institute analyzed the school lunch menus offered by each company. The nutritional quality of the menus was scored using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI). The HEI is a continuous score ranging from zero to 100 that uses a well-established food component analysis to determine how well food offerings (or diets) match the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The HEI is the Department of Agriculture’s preferred measure of diet quality, and the agency uses it to “examine relationships between diet and health-related outcomes, and to assess the quality of food assistance packages, menus, and the US food supply.” The average HEI score for the U.S. population is 63.8, while the median HEI score in our study is 59.9. In other words, the typical private company providing public school lunch in CA is a bit less healthy than the average American diet.

We measure the relationship between having a lunch prepared by a standard (below median HEI) or healthy (above median HEI) company relative to in-house preparation by school staff. Our model estimates the effect of lunch quality on student achievement using year-to-year changes between in-house preparation of school meals and outside vendors of varying menu quality, within a given school . We control for grade, school, and year factors, as well as specific student and school characteristics including race, English learner, low family income, school budget, and student-to-teacher ratios.

We find that in years when a school contracts with a healthy lunch company, students at the school score better on end-of-year academic tests. On average, student test scores are 0.03 to 0.04 standard deviations higher (about 4 percentile points). Not only that, the test score increases are about 40 percent larger for students who qualify for reduced-price or free school lunches. These students are also the ones who are most likely to eat the school lunches.

Moreover, we find no evidence that contracting with a private company to provide healthier meals changes the number of school lunches sold. This is important for two reasons. First, it reinforces our conclusion that the test score improvements we measure are being driven by differences in food quality, and not food quantity. A number of recent studies have shown that providing (potentially) hungry kids with greater access to food through the National School Lunch Program can lead to improved test scores. We are among the very few studies to focus on quality, rather than food quantity (i.e., calories). Second, some critics of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act worried that by raising the nutritional standards of school lunches that fewer children would eat the food, thereby unintentionally harming the students that the law was designed to help. Our results provide some reassurance that this is not likely to be the case.

Finally, we also examine whether healthier school lunches lead to a reduction in the number of overweight students. We follow previous literature and use whether a student’s body composition (i.e. body fat) is measured to be outside the healthy zone on the Presidential Fitness Test . We find no evidence that having a healthier school lunch reduces the number of overweight students. There are a few possible interpretations of this finding, including that a longer time period may be necessary to observe improvements in health, the measure of overweight is too imprecise, or that students are eating the same amount of calories due to National School Lunch Program calorie meal targets.

Education researchers have emphasized the need and opportunity for cost-effective education policies . While the test score improvements are modest in size, providing healthier school lunches is potentially a very cost-effective way for a school to improve student learning. Using actual meal contract bid information we estimate that it costs approximately an additional $80 per student per year to contract with one of the healthy school lunch providers relative to preparing the meals completely in-house.

While this may seem expensive at first, compare the cost-effectiveness of our estimated test score changes with other policies. A common benchmark is the Tennessee Star experiment , which found a large reduction in the class size of grades K-3 by one-third correlated with a 0.22 standard deviation test score increase. This reduction cost over $2,000 when the study was published in 1999, and would be even more today. It is (rightfully) expensive to hire more teachers, but scaling this benefit-cost ratio to achieve a bump in student learning gains equal to our estimates, we find class-size increases would be at least five times more expensive than healthier lunches.

Thus, increasing the nutritional quality of school meals appears to be a promising, cost-effective way to improve student learning. The value of providing healthier public school lunches is true even without accounting for the potential short- and long-term health benefits, such as a reduction in childhood obesity and the development of healthier lifelong eating habits. Our results cast doubt on the wisdom of the recently announced proposal by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to roll back some of the school lunch health requirements implemented as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

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Why School Meals Matter

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. Weight statistics for children are approaching that of adults: 1 in 3 children is now overweight or obese. Studies have also shown a rising prevalence of type 1 and 2 diabetes in adolescents ages 10 through 19 years, with increasing obesity cited as a key contributor. [1]

On a positive note, the CDC showed a significant 40% decline in obesity rates from 2003 to 2012 in younger children ages 2 to 5 years. [2] Another CDC report revealed a decline in obesity rates among low-income children ages 2 to 4 years participating in federal nutrition programs. [3] Authors from both studies discussed the likely impact of early education programs focusing on improved nutrition and exercise standards, as guided by the HHFKA.

Despite some anecdotal reports in the media that fruits and vegetables from these new updated school meals were ending up in the trash, two studies discovered the opposite. In 2014, Cohen at al. found that children were eating more of their entrees and selecting and eating more fruit. [4] In 2015, Schwartz et al. followed more than 500 children in urban schools in grades 5 through 7, comparing before and after pictures and weights of their school lunches. [5] They found that after two years there was a 19% increase in vegetable intake. Though the amount of fruit eaten did not change, 12% more children were selecting fruits as part of their lunch tray. The authors noted that a greater variety of fruits had been made available, which may have encouraged the children to choose fruit.

Healthier choices throughout the school day

According to standards that went into effect in 2016, a Smart Snack must be one of the following:

• A grain product that contains 50 percent or more whole grains by weight (i.e., lists a whole grain as the first ingredient)
• Have as the first ingredient a fruit, a vegetable, a dairy product, or a protein food
• A combination food that contains at least ¼ cup of fruit and/or vegetable

The snack must also meet specific  nutrient standards for calories, sodium, sugar, and fats per serving.

When it comes to drinks, allowed beverages include the following:

• Plain water (with or without carbonation)
• Unflavored low fat milk
• Unflavored or flavored fat-free milk and milk alternatives
• 100% fruit or vegetable juice
• Calorie-free, flavored water (with or without carbonation)
• Flavored and/or carbonated beverages that contain less than 5 calories per 8 fluid ounces or ≤10 calories per 20 fluid ounces.

Further modifications beyond these school food standards might include eliminating flavored, sweetened milks and offering only plain milk; limiting fruit juice; providing entrees of poultry, fish, and beans more often than red meat and processed meats; and replacing solid fats with healthful oils such as canola, sunflower, and olive oil when preparing food, salad dressings and sauces.

Parent Tip: How do I know my child is eating their school lunch?

• An important step is to involve your child with meal decisions and maintain an encouraging and non-judgmental attitude to foster open dialogue.
• Most schools provide monthly calendars of their school lunch offerings that include the main meal and alternatives. Discuss each of the choices with your child and highlight the specific foods in the meal they like, dislike, or aren’t sure of. After school, ask what foods they ate and didn’t eat and why. This can help to plan their future meals and snacks.
• Pack nutritious snacks of string cheese, sunflower or pumpkin seeds, whole or chopped fruit, and cut up vegetables that your child enjoys in case they don’t finish the school lunch offering one day. As children respond positively to variety [5], periodically change up the types of fruits and vegetables in their snack bag.

• If your child does not consume foods offered at school, here are some tips and inspiration for preparing healthy lunchboxes and snack ideas.
• Dabelea, D., et al. Prevalence of Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes Among Children and Adolescents From 2001 to 2009. JAMA , 2014. 311(17): p. 1778-86.
• Ogden, C.L., et al. Prevalence of Childhood and Adult Obesity in the United States, 2011-2012. JAMA, 2014;311(8):806-14.
• Vital Signs: Obesity Among Low-Income, Preschool-Aged Children—United States, 2008–2011. MMWR, 2013;62(31);629-34.
• Cohen, J., et al. Impact of the New U.S. Department of Agriculture School Meal Standards on Food Selection, Consumption, and Waste.  Am J Prev Med, 2014;46(4):388-94.
• Schwartz Marlene B., et al. New School Meal Regulations Increase Fruit Consumption and Do Not Increase Total Plate Waste. Childhood Obesity, 2015;11(3): 242-7.

Essays on School Lunches

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Why Students Hate School Lunches

By Kate Murphy

• Sept. 26, 2015

MORE than 30 million children trundle through school cafeteria lines every day in the United States and thanks to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act , which took effect in 2012, they are no longer served greasy pizza, salty French fries and sauced up chicken wings. Meals must now be lower in fat, calories and sodium and contain lean proteins, more fruits and vegetables and whole grains. And kids from coast to coast are wrinkling their noses.

Food and nutrition directors at school districts nationwide say that their trash cans are overflowing while their cash register receipts are diminishing as children either toss out the healthier meals or opt to brown-bag it. While no one argues that the solution is to scrap the law and go back to feeding children junk, there’s been a movement to relax a few of the guidelines as Congress considers whether to reauthorize the legislation, particularly mandates for 100 percent whole grains and extremely low sodium levels, so school meals will be a bit more palatable and reflective of culinary traditions.

“Other than mandating more fruits and vegetables, the new regulations haven’t really changed anything except force manufacturers to re-engineer products” so they meet the guidelines but not children’s taste expectations, said Bertrand Weber, director of culinary and nutrition services at the Minneapolis Public Schools . “Now kids get whole grain doughnuts — whoop-de-do.”

And yet, cafeteria operators complain, the new regulations forbid them to serve a classic baguette, semolina pasta or jasmine rice, much less the butter and flavorful sauces that often go with them. Never mind that these are staples of diets in other cultures with far lower rates of childhood and adult obesity than in the United States.

Consider that in France, where the childhood obesity rate is the lowest in the Western world, a typical four-course school lunch (cucumber salad with vinaigrette, salmon lasagna with spinach, fondue with baguette for dipping and fruit compote for dessert) would probably not pass muster under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, because of the refined grains, fat, salt and calories. Nor would the weekly piece of dark chocolate cake.

By comparison, a typical federally approved school lunch in the United States is a “reformulated” Philly cheesesteak sandwich (low-fat, low-salt processed cheese and lean mystery meat on a whole grain bun) with steamed green beans, a potato wedge, canned peaches and an apple. Students often have less than 20 minutes to eat this before returning to class, while French children may have as long as two hours to eat and socialize.

Not surprisingly, American kids, whether pressed for time or just grossed out, leave much of their meals untouched; particularly neglected are the fruits and vegetables, which they are now forced to put on their trays before they can exit the cafeteria line.

The School Nutrition Association said that 70 percent of school meal programs had taken a significant financial hit since the new mandates went into effect. Cafeteria operators from Los Angeles to New York report discouraging amounts of food waste and declining participation. “We lost 15 percent of our revenue when we started putting the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act into place,” said Chris Burkhardt, director of child nutrition and wellness at the Lakota Local School District in southwestern Ohio. “I talk to P.T.O. and P.T.A. groups and ask how many serve only whole grains and low sodium foods at home and maybe one hand goes up,” adding that he’s not convinced that person was telling the truth.

To reduce waste and bring back students who have opted to pack a lunch or, in the case of high school students, go off campus for fast food, his district’s cafeterias have installed stir-fry stations with abundant vegetables so students can have meals made to order. And he’s added spice bars so kids can enliven the bland, low-salt fare.

In Minneapolis, Mr. Weber is phasing out processed food in favor of more scratch-made meals prepared in full on-site kitchens that are being installed in all his district’s 62 schools over a six-year period. He has also partnered with local chefs to sponsor “Junior Iron Chef Contests,” where students compete to come up with cafeteria recipes. There are also Minnesota Thursdays where everything on the menu is locally sourced.

For Ann Cooper, food services director at the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado and a longtime proponent of farm-to-table cafeteria food as well as school gardens and cooking classes, this trend toward fresher food and student engagement is evidence that the federal legislation is working.

“We have to educate the kids about healthy eating,” she said. “If a kid wasn’t reading at grade level we would work harder to get them to read at grade level, but with food we’ve somehow abdicated that part of their education.”

The Department of Agriculture is urging Congress to reauthorize the act to give children and cafeteria operators enough time to adjust. But farm-fresh food, scratch cooking and nutrition education cost money that less affluent school districts like Detroit Public Schools don’t have. The solution there was to take advantage of the Community Eligibility Provision (C.E.P.) in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which allows high-poverty districts to provide free meals to all students. That way they get more money from the government and don’t have to rely so much on sales to better-off students who have other options.

“I lost a million dollars that first year the regulations took place,” said Betti Wiggins, executive director of Detroit Public Schools’ Office of Nutrition. Now, thanks to C.E.P. as well as eliminating choices of entrees in lower grades and cycling her menus more often (12 days versus 20 days) to control inventory, her department is back in the black. And kids are starting to come around to reformulated entrees like three-bean vegetarian chili with cornbread and low-fat breaded chicken patties.

“This is an obesity crisis,’’ she said, “and we’ve gotten rid of health classes and P.E., so we’re back to the lunch lady and the tray.”

BUT many experts in taste preferences say starting at school age may be too late. Research indicates that the critical period for broadening the palate is the first two years . “It’s harder to change preferences than to form them,” said Leann Birch, a development psychologist at the University of Georgia in Athens. “The reality is kids learn to eat what their parents eat, and if kids are getting something different at school, then it’s not surprising they aren’t eating it.”

In addition, by forbidding certain foods and coercively promoting others, some worry that the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act may perpetuate Americans’ uneasy, binge-prone relationship with food.

Karen Le Billon, visiting professor of environmental studies at Stanford and author of “French Kids Eat Everything,” said in France there was “no guilt or blame around food,” but rather “it’s more about moderation than deprivation.” Most French children and adults, she said, have no clue about the caloric content of foods, and the general attitude about fat, such as naturally found in nut butters, avocados or a creamy piece of cheese, is “it’s tasty so why not eat it?” — particularly when it promotes feelings of satiety so you won’t snack between meals.

“It’s not rocket science and it’s not only the French,” said Ms. Le Billon, who divides her time between Palo Alto, Calif., Vancouver, Canada and Brittany. “These are things that parents in other less obese countries, like Japan and Italy, know and teach their kids but we have somehow forgotten. We are a culture of constant eating and it’s not working in terms of keeping us at a healthy weight.”

Kate Murphy is a journalist in Houston who writes frequently for The New York Times.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter , and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter .

Home — Essay Samples — Education — Public School — School Lunch Should Be Free And More Healthy

School Lunch Should Be Free and More Healthy

• Categories: Public School

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Words: 1078 |

Published: Dec 16, 2021

Words: 1078 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Works Cited

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018). Childhood Obesity Facts.
• Food Research & Action Center. (2022). National School Lunch Program. Retrieved from https://www.frac.org/programs/national-school-lunch-program
• Gatto, N. M., Ventura, E. E., Cook, L. T., & Gyllenhammer, L. E. (2012). Davis SPAN Program: A Nutrition Intervention Program for Children with Special Needs. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 112(2), 231–237.
• Government Accountability Office. (2011). National School Lunch Program: Improving Nutrition and Resource Management Could Further Enhance Program’s Effectiveness.
• Honigman, J. (2019). Students protest after Pennsylvania school district threatens to put kids in foster care over unpaid lunch debt.
• Hsin, A., & Muth, M. K. (2008). Effect of Excess Adiposity on Arterial Elasticity in Children. Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism, 13(1), 23–28.
• Neumark-Sztainer, D., Story, M., Hannan, P. J., Perry, C. L., & Irving, L. M. (2004). Weight-Related Concerns and Behaviors Among Overweight and Nonoverweight Adolescents: Implications for Preventing Weight-Related Disorders. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 158(2), 185–193.
• School Nutrition Association. (2022). 2022 Position Paper: School Meal Programs. Retrieved from https://schoolnutrition.org/advocacy/policy-priorities/position-papers/
• The State of Obesity. (2022). Adult Obesity in the United States.
• United States Department of Agriculture. (2022). National School Lunch Program: Participation and Lunches Served. Retrieved from https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp/national-school-lunch-program-nslp

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There’s so much more to AI in schools than cheating in essays, says Dunblane teacher

Talk about schoolchildren using AI tools like ChatGPT and people think of the potential for cheating in homework.

But that’s not among the big issues we should be focussing on around artificial intelligence in education according to leading thinkers in the field.

Chris Ranson, of Dunblane High School, is among the more well-informed teachers on the emerging technology.

The Stirling secondary is seen as one of Scotland’s early adopters of AI and Chris is its AI integration lead.

He reckons we need to control the narrative on AI in schools and ensure it reaffirms the value of human thinking and human education.

He says: “Generative AI will be a hugely positive thing in our society if we get the right grasp of it.”

Most young people he has asked are already using generative AI, most commonly Snapchat’s MyA chatbot .

Yes, some pupils have passed off AI-generated output as their own for school assignments, he says.

But this could be a short term problem, he reckons, and countered by a change in assessment methods which is already in the post for Scotland.

The fact young people are already being exposed to such “radically powerful technology” makes instruction on the topic necessary, says Chris.

“It would be a mistake to assume uncritically encouraging [AI’s] use in schools is a good thing, but also a mistake to pretend a technological revolution is not currently underway.”

What is AI?

AI is not new, the term first coined in the 1950s.

Alexa uses AI. AI is the algorithms which determine your social media feed. AI organises photos on your mobile phone into albums like ‘snow days’ or ‘at the beach’.

AI is used day-to-day in health care, finance, retail, entertainment.

Generative AI – they type you can ask to write an essay, answer a question, create a picture – began to really take off around 18 months ago.

This includes chatbot ChatGPT, digital assistant Microsoft Copilot and image generators DALL-E and MidJourney.

All of these and many more are already in common use, and the technology is evolving rapidly.

I used Copilot on my laptop to aid research for this article – double-checking facts, of course – and DALL-E3 to produce the images at the top and above.

Chris says: “Generative AI will be a defining factor in the future of everyone in Scotland.

“The exponential effects of this technology are beginning to be felt across many industries and we will all be the benefactors of this, as well as the likely inheritors of unintended consequences.”

So both teachers and pupils need to be aware of both the benefits and the risks.

What could AI be used for in schools?

Lesson planning, personalised feedback, producing visual aids, graphs or question banks are all jobs which could be done by AI, Chris says.

AI can make it easier for us to use computers so that we speak to them rather than clicking through options. The computer learns us rather than us having to learn how to use it.

Pupils can use it for research and project-based learning.

What are the drawbacks of AI?

Herein lies one of the problems of generative AI. Accuracy.

“Unless one already knows about a subject, they cannot be sure if generative AI is generating false information,” says Chris.

Tools can produce the wrong answer to numerical problems, for example, yet confidently explain how they reached it.

That is among the key messages Chris conveys when he speaks to teachers and pupils about AI.

He says: “Generative AI cannot be trusted. By its nature its job is to generate content and often it will do this without much regard to truth or validity.”

Also he warns people that every conversation with a chatbot is public, saved in a database somewhere.

A cognitive crutch?

Chatbots will be influenced by bias and groupthink, shaped over time by large populations of people using the same tools.

In terms of security, safety features of generative AI can be bypassed. Production of sexual and violent material is another concern, says Chris.

But his biggest worry is that freely introducing generative AI into the classroom may create a “cognitive crutch for pupils who are in the process of learning how to learn”.

He says: “This concern may prove to be as irrational as saying the internet would damage the education of young people.

“But until we have some evidence one way or the other, I am cautious about introducing a tool which offloads much of the critical thinking a young person develops in school; critical thinking which they then can use in all walks of life.”

How has AI been used so far in Dunblane High School?

For this reason and others, Chris has shied away from promoting its use in Dunblane High School.

Chris says: “Staff and pupils both have had a similar mix of curiosity and caution regarding the use of AI.

“Some teachers have used it for the production of learning materials, for example, generating question banks or images, others have used it to produce content for the pupils to critically analyse.”

While he reckons its too early to assume generative AI will benefit classroom learning, Chris reckons teachers need to be coached in its possibilities.

And even the most technophobic among them may be pleasantly surprised.

He says: “Teachers who have struggled to use current software systems will not want to get into the nitty gritty of generative offerings.

“However, if generative AI possibilities are allowed air to breathe then it should appear so attractive to such teachers that they actively want to use it.

“For example, if you could say to a teacher you no longer have to click through all the various options and menus required to complete online activities, be it content creation or marking, then even the more technologically weary would be interested potentially.”

AI at Abertay University for the future workforce

Dr Salma ElSayed uses AI in her classes in at Abertay University School of Design and Informatics.

She reckons there’s an untapped potential to exploit for teachers.

“We could use AI in the classroom for demonstrative purposes, for example explaining complex problems in an easy way. We could ask AI to do visualisations, make visual aids to help explain things.

“We can rely on AI to do tasks relatively quickly, like summarising texts, plotting graphs, translating text.

“There are a lot of exploitations we haven’t even touched on yet.”

Salma says we remain at an “early stage of being fascinated by how this is going” but we need to tread cautiously.

“We always tell our students be careful because it’s not reliable, it doesn’t guarantee the factual information is correct.”

Salma teaches students how to use generative AI. And she believes that skill will be vital when they join the workforce.

“When they graduate most employers will expect them to know generative AI and how to use it, even if it’s not the discipline of the company.

“We teach our students it’s important we embrace it but we have to use it in an ethical way.”

Where is AI-used prohibited for schoolchildren?

Use of AI was temporarily banned in some Australian schools. Schools in some American states also banned it.

Here pupils are forbidden by the Scottish Qualifications Authority from using or referencing AI tools in coursework.

A spokesperson said: “SQA recognises that artificial intelligence technology and tools present great opportunities and substantial challenges for Scotland’s education community.

“That’s why we have provided clear guidance and leadership to protect the credibility of assessment and qualifications.

“We will continue to engage regularly and closely with teachers and learners and with education partners to ensure our guidance and policies keep pace with the rapid advances in AI capability and adoption.”

AI in a new Scottish education system

The potential for AI to disrupt the current qualification system was considered in the Hayward review of qualification and assessment reform .

The review report recommends reform of Scotland’s exams-based system. These include scrapping fourth year exams and different assessment methods for Highers and Advanced Highers.

It recommends the Scottish Government convene a cross sector commission on AI in education as a matter of urgency.

Teachers, it says, should be supported in making the best of tools such as ChatGPT, and coursework tasks made compatible with AI developments.

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