Why We Should Care About Healthy School Meals

Did you know that schools across the U.S. prepare more meals than any of the nation’s fast food chains? According to the latest statistics, more than 95,000 K-12 schools daily served almost 30 million students aged 5-18, with about 21.2 million children eating school lunches and 12.4 million children eating school breakfasts in the 2023-24 school year – resulting in more than 5 billion school meals served in one year!

That is a lot of food! Unfortunately, school meals went the same way as our food system, resulting in most of these meals being reheated ultra-processed foods rather than in the past when school cafeterias had full working kitchens and all meals were made from scratch. We need to fix this mistake, and many schools are now bringing back chefs and making healthy and nutritious meals.

Another issue is access to school meals and the issue of debt and disgrace. Many families go into debt to the schools for the meals, and others skip entire meals because of the stigma around the affordability of meals. Happily, several states are currently implementing or planning to implement free school meals.

A final issue is food scarcity and the vital role school meals play in providing meals that would otherwise be skipped because families don’t have access to food. Thus, school meals provide a vital and important link to children who otherwise would not eat. About 1 in 8 people in the U.S. suffer from food insecurity, including roughly 12 million children.

Fun Fact: Meals were first introduced into schools in 1946 with the goal of improving food security.

Why Healthy School Meals Matter

Providing no-cost school meals to every student allows access to food that has many benefits, including:

• Enhanced Academic Achievement. Multiple research studies show that students who have access to meals perform better than those who do not have access. As important, students who consume healthy meals (not ultra-processed and overly sugared) achieve higher academic success than those who eat nothing or conventional convenience foods.

• Better Overall Health. When schools provide healthy, nutritious meals, student health and well-being increase, reducing absenteeism and promoting better health and hygiene. When food and health can be incorporated into the curriculum, even greater success is achieved, including a reduction in obesity.

• Attendance Rates Improve. Providing healthy school meals significantly improves student attendance, especially with students from lower-income and food-insecure households.

• Improved Student Behavior. When healthy school meals replace the sugar-filled foods and beverages typical with the Standard American Diet, student behavior problems decline, and teachers report much fewer cases of hyperactivity, unruliness, and sugar crashes. And for those students who are food insecure, having those healthy meals provides fuel for better behavior.

We Need Healthy School Meals

Unfortunately, while there is a groundswell of support for bringing healthy meals to schools, many schools are extremely limited by government regulations mandating tight costs per student, resulting in the use of standard, ultra-processed foods from low-cost providers (who use the cheapest ingredients).

To improve school meals, we need to eliminate three major elements – all found in ultra-processed foods:

1. Added Sugars. School-aged children consume an average of 17 teaspoons of added refined sugar per day because food marketers put sugar in most foods; sugary and nonfat beverages are the worst offenders. Sugar is both addictive and toxic in the amounts people and children are consuming and is the leading cause of weight gain and insulin resistance.

2. Seed Oils. All ultra-processed foods use one or more “vegetable” oils, including the toxic collection of canola, corn, vegetable, soybean, cottonseed, peanut, palm, sunflower, and safflower. These oils are industrially processed (in an intensive chemical procedure) using seeds from plants soaked in pesticides and herbicides and have been proven to be inflammatory in the body, especially at the high levels people are consuming.

3. Chemical Additives. Food marketers are allowed to use thousands of untested chemicals to enhance the flavor, texture, color, and smell of foods, as well as for preserving them. Some states are now creating initiatives and laws to block the most toxic of these additives still allowed in the U.S. (while being banned in many other parts of the world).

Want more information? Read my article, Are Ultra-Processed Foods Killing You?

Final Thoughts About School Meals

Literally, the future of this country is connected to school meals because today's children are tomorrow’s leaders. We need healthy, attentive, active children eating the highest-quality foods for their growing bodies and brains so that they can become productive citizens of tomorrow.

When children are forced to skip school meals because of cost or stigma, they do not perform as well academically and are more likely to have behavioral issues.

When children are forced to eat school meals high in sugars, seed oils, and added chemicals, they do not perform as well academically and are more likely to have behavioral issues.

The solution is upgrading the quality of school meals using better and real ingredients, with the bulk of meals made from scratch – and offering them for free to ALL students.

Drinks and beverages on school campuses need to change as well – either to include only water or full-fat dairy. Sodas and fruit juices should be banned at all schools (including the vending machines) as should nonfat (fat-free) milks, which replace the fat with added sugar.

One final plea. Local foods are often the ripest and healthiest foods. The USDA and several nonprofits are working to expand initiatives like Farm-to-School programs. In my area, that means bringing in grassfed ground beef for school burgers, and supporting the local farming community while providing a healthy, nutrient-dense protein for students. Taking that idea to another level, some schools are initiating school gardens so that the produce can be harvested at its most nutrient-dense and served in school meals.

Additional Healthy School Meal Resouces

• Why School Food Matters

• The Importance of School Meals

• Why School Meals Matter

• Why School Meals Matter

• 30 Million Kids in American Schools Deserve Better Nutrition

• Why Healthy School Lunches are Critical for Students’ Success