Nutritious School Lunches

1. Nutritious School Lunches Andrea Wysong

2. School Lunches in Politics • Recently, the senate approved a $4.5 billion plan called "The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act". The bill would establish nutrition standards for school lunches and all food sold in schools, including vending machines. It would also raise the number of children eligible for free or reduced-cost meals, including children covered under Medicaid. In order to finance this project, $2.2 billion has been taken from the Food Stamps program, which provides food to hungry families. • Purpose of Survey • I wanted to know what others thought of this bill, so I conducted a survey asking how people felt about the funding of the program. I also considered some alternative ways to fund nutritious school lunch programs, and asked for some other ideas as well. • Procedure The sample of people that I surveyed were other Ithaca College students. It was simply a sample of convenience. I emailed 10 classmates and provided them with a link to the survey. After about a week, I sent a follow-up email to everyone to see if I could get a few more responses. I ended up with 9 total responses to my survey. Introduction

3. Survey Results

4. Discussion • Results Importance of School Lunches Many people believe that school lunch is important and should be nutritious, but taking out packaged food and using Food Stamps dollars to pay for it is not a good idea. It was pretty undecided about whether or not this could help reduce health care costs.

5. Which of the following do you believe would be the best way to get kids to eat healthier school lunches? • Results • Discussion Kids Making Their Own Healthy Choices Everyone surveyed believed that packaged foods and desserts should be left within schools, but there was variation on how to get kids to choose the healthier options. 5 people believed that making them more convenient and visible would be best, while 3 thought that educating kids is the best tactic, and 1 thought that healthier foods should cost less.

6. If there are students in the school who are unable to pay for the more nutritious food and funding is not available to help them, what do you believe is the best solution? • Results • Discussion Funding Solutions Most of the people surveyed believe that some families should be charged more to compensate for those who can’t. One person recommended providing a reduced cost lunch to families who apply for it.

7. Discussion • Results “The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” vs. Food Stamps While all of the people surveyed believed that “The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act” should not be using money from Food Stamps, they also almost agreed that nutritious lunches are more important than food stamps. Michelle Obama in Philadelphia promoting “Let’s Move”.

8. What do you believe is the best way to make sure every child gets a nutritious lunch to eat each day at school? • Results Open Ended Responses 7 people answered this question, and the answers were consolidated into the following 4 ideas:

9. Results • Discussion • There were 9 responses to this question. In elementary and middle school, 6 of the 9 respondents ate school lunch 5 days a week—every day. • If 2/3 of children are eating a school meal 5 times a week, this a definitely a place where nutritional quality is important. Personal Experience

10. Importance • School lunches are not a place where nutritional quality should be compromised for price. My survey shows that people do believe that children should get a nutritious meal to eat each day. While the funding for this is hard to come by so that every child gets to participate, it is something that needs to be addressed. Summary Example of an improved lunch menu.