Lunch reform leaves students hungry

In an attempt to skinny up America’s youth, Michelle Obama feverishly pushed the concept of healthier school lunches. The U.S. Department of Agriculture responded by reducing the calorie count for school lunches, creating what would seem like an ingenious approach to the rising obesity in children.

Things aren’t always how they appear, however — and cutting the calories from students’ lunches is probably the most illogical approach to the American obesity epidemic.

According to the Waconia Patriot news website, school meals are now restricted to a certain calorie range based on grade levels. Elementary school student lunches are now 550 to 650 calories, middle school students 600 to 700 calories, and high school is 750 to 850 calories. These numbers, especially the elementary and middle school numbers, are extremely close. This would mean a 5-year-old kindergarten student and a 13-year-old eighth-grader could very well be eating the same size of meal.

A recent viral hit created by Wallace Country High School students in Kansas called “We Are Hungry” creates a mockery of the new USDA guidelines. The video portrays students becoming hungry, lethargic, and unable to focus throughout the school day due to the lack of food they are served at lunch. While the students’ acting was exaggerated, they expressed a reality that will no doubt hit kids hard as the new guidelines carry on.

Portions have been cut in half in schools all over the U.S. I’ve even noticed it on my own lunch tray at Houston High School — lunch is three small chicken strips, low-fat milk, and a small cup of peaches that could fit in your hand.

While this sounds like a meal for an elementary school student, it is definitely not enough to keep a high school student going throughout the day. Still hungry, students turn to things like vending machines, which generally sell things like potato chips, cookies and Pop-Tarts. With students turning to even unhealthier choices to silence their growling stomachs, the reform on school lunches becomes even more illogical.

For any student athlete who depends on school lunches for food, they will now be deprived of the proteins they need to perform at practice after school. According to the Nutrition Express website, the average high school athlete should eat about 6 ounces of protein per meal. The USDA requires students to receive at least 2 ounces of protein each day, but no more than 12 ounces each week.

Protein is not just important for athletes though. Nutrition Express explains that clarity in class requires glutamine, a protein, and glucose. Without glutamine and glucose, paying attention and absorbing information becomes extremely difficult. The lack of protein in school lunches now not only deprives athletes of energy necessary to play, but it deprives all students of the ability to learn and absorb information.

While I agree that students shouldn’t be served things like energy drinks or grease-laden, deep fried foods for their school lunch, the real answer to the obesity epidemic is not cutting calories. It is not cutting portions to what the government thinks is correct.

Enforcement should be going toward more gym teachers and exercise programs in schools where obese students can learn to burn calories and fat. The enforcement of more exercise in schools would also keep already fit students healthy and would prevent the obesity statistics from rising.

Efforts to teach courses on nutrition should also be encouraged in schools.

Nutritional courses in schools would help students get a better understanding of why it is important to eat healthy. The basic food group and food pyramid lessons are not enough for children to comprehend the consequences of not living a healthy lifestyle, and most students seem to forget all about those elementary lessons by the time they are in high school.

Cutting calories and restricting portions and proteins seems to be only hurting students as opposed to helping them. A better understanding of nutrition and more exercise is the only real help our public schools can offer to the rising concern over obesity.

Holly Brett is a three-year journalism student and this is her second year writing for the Frontiersman School’s Page.