Health News
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- Kentucky School Officials Make Foods Look More Appetizing And Easier To Eat, In Order To Decrease Food Waste
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- Some Parents Complain About Healthier School Lunches, But Usda Says It's On Course To Improve Public Health
A few school districts in other states are opting out of a federal-funded school lunch program that was touted by first lady Michelle Obama to provide healthier options to students, and some parents in Harlan County are complaining about the new...
- Testing Out New School Lunch Guidelines Yields Unhappy Customers, More Trash And An Effort To Undo The Mandate
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Health News
#ThanksMichelleObama: Students use social media to voice their unhappiness with revamped school lunches
School kids around the country are tweeting pictures of their unappetizing school lunches and blaming the most prominent advocate for healthier school meals for their "bowls of mush and mystery proteins," Roberto A. Ferdman reports for The Washington Post.
The tweets use the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama, which dates back to 2012. They were "being sent out at a rate of 40 per minute last week, but started to gain momentum some 10 days back," Ferdman writes.
The tweets and pictures vary, with some presenting a "mealy substance" or mystery food that is supposed to pass for the entree while others poke fun at how pitiful the presentation is.
"We've seen the photos being tweeted," said Sam Kass, executive director of Let's Move!, the organization Obama founded to fight childhood obesity. "But we don't dictate the food that schools serve?school districts do." He added, "We?ve seen thousands of examples of healthy, delicious school lunches that meet the new standards being made across the country by talented school chefs."
Obama has been a key player in the implementation of the new health standards in schools, which mandate an increase in fruits, vegetables and whole grains and place restrictions on calories,sodium, sugar and fat served in a school day. These restrictions were also added to snacks and beverages this year.
Several studies have reported great success with these new requirements. In Virginia, a recent study found that school lunches were "significantly healthier" than home packed lunches and a study in Massachusetts concluded the same thing.
But others say that this healthy food is not being eaten, but instead thrown away. A Harvard School of Public Health study in Massachusetts supports this conclusion, finding that "some 60 percent of vegetables and 40 percent of fresh fruit are thrown away (for good measure, even more vegetables?some 75 percent?were thrown out before the USDA school meal standards went into effect)," Ferdman reports.
Complaining about cafeteria food in certainly not a new phenomena, what is new is that "everyone has a camera on their phone and a public platform to share pictures," Ferdman writes.
The tweets use the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama, which dates back to 2012. They were "being sent out at a rate of 40 per minute last week, but started to gain momentum some 10 days back," Ferdman writes.
The tweets and pictures vary, with some presenting a "mealy substance" or mystery food that is supposed to pass for the entree while others poke fun at how pitiful the presentation is.
"We've seen the photos being tweeted," said Sam Kass, executive director of Let's Move!, the organization Obama founded to fight childhood obesity. "But we don't dictate the food that schools serve?school districts do." He added, "We?ve seen thousands of examples of healthy, delicious school lunches that meet the new standards being made across the country by talented school chefs."Obama has been a key player in the implementation of the new health standards in schools, which mandate an increase in fruits, vegetables and whole grains and place restrictions on calories,sodium, sugar and fat served in a school day. These restrictions were also added to snacks and beverages this year.
Several studies have reported great success with these new requirements. In Virginia, a recent study found that school lunches were "significantly healthier" than home packed lunches and a study in Massachusetts concluded the same thing.
But others say that this healthy food is not being eaten, but instead thrown away. A Harvard School of Public Health study in Massachusetts supports this conclusion, finding that "some 60 percent of vegetables and 40 percent of fresh fruit are thrown away (for good measure, even more vegetables?some 75 percent?were thrown out before the USDA school meal standards went into effect)," Ferdman reports.
Complaining about cafeteria food in certainly not a new phenomena, what is new is that "everyone has a camera on their phone and a public platform to share pictures," Ferdman writes.
- Scheduling Lunch After Recess, Very Unusual In Elementaries, May Lead To Less Food Waste And Better Nutrition, Study Says
Scheduling school lunch later in the day could help children to eat more nutritious foods and reduce food waste, according to a study at seven schools in Utah. Researchers found that children threw away more food when they ate lunch before recess instead...
- Kentucky School Officials Make Foods Look More Appetizing And Easier To Eat, In Order To Decrease Food Waste
Some school districts are working to keep fruits and vegetables from being thrown out by students who seem to be unhappy with their school lunches that must follow stricter nutrition guidelines to get federal subsidies. "The key to getting students to...
- Mass. Study Finds Home-packed School Lunches Lack Whole Grains, Fruits And Vegetables, And Have Too Much Sugary Stuff
Packing a healthy lunch that kids will eat is an ongoing challenge for families, and a challenge that is often not met, according to a study by researchers at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. ?When deciding what to pack, parents are juggling time, cost,...
- Some Parents Complain About Healthier School Lunches, But Usda Says It's On Course To Improve Public Health
A few school districts in other states are opting out of a federal-funded school lunch program that was touted by first lady Michelle Obama to provide healthier options to students, and some parents in Harlan County are complaining about the new...
- Testing Out New School Lunch Guidelines Yields Unhappy Customers, More Trash And An Effort To Undo The Mandate
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, the Obama administration's effort to mandate more fresh fruit, vegetables and whole grains into the diets of school children, has some uphill climbing to do and it's not just the kids who are complaining. Though,...