School Lunch and Obesity
The newest study out of the USDA's Economic Research Service focuses on school meals and obesity. The findings? Students who eat school lunch are just as likely to be overweight as students who do not. For both groups, the numbers are shocking. The researchers found that a whopping 40 percent of ...
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July 17, 2009
Plenty of Regulations, But are They the Right Ones?
By Nancy Borowski and Ann Cooper — School cafeterias have to comply with a slew of USDA regulations. In fact, we spend an inordinate amount of time striving to follow guidelines as opposed to actually feeding children. So what exactly are those government regulations? And do they adequately ensure that students eat the healthy ...
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April 6, 2009
At the Lunch Table: A Report from the Field
By Suzanne Buchko — I had lunch last Friday at my daughter Julia's school with her K-1 class. Julia usually brings her lunch from home because she doesn't like most of what is served as “hot lunch,” and because her Dad is one of those people who wakes up at 5:30 and ...
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March 30, 2009
The Distorted School Lunch Food Pyramid
By Deborah Lehmann — The USDA might as well issue two food pyramids — one for the National School Lunch Program and another for all other Americans. Here's how the guidelines for school meals compare to the current USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Look at the numbers for meat/beans, and then ...
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February 27, 2009
What’s the state of American school lunch?
By Deborah Lehmann — School food has gotten better, but cafeterias have a long way to go. That’s the message in a supplement to this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The special section discusses the findings of the Third School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study, which collected data ...
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February 13, 2009
Welcome to F is for French Fry
By Deborah Lehmann — The United States is facing an obesity epidemic. One-third of adults and 16 percent of children are obese, and those numbers are growing quickly. One study projects that 86 percent of Americans will be overweight or obese by 2030. In 2000, we spent $117 billion on obesity-related ...
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February 11, 2009
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