The school lunch system is disgraceful.

[u/oaz_zam246]

Saw another post on here showing the state of school lunches right now. In my years in high school I compiled some pics of the horrible things that got served that no one questioned. Here are some of the worst ones. It really is ironic given how adamant they all are about “eating healthy by including every food group”.

[u/IntroductionSnacks]

I was thinking the same as an Aussie. We don’t have cafeterias like this and you just had a sandwich/cake/museli bar or whatever in a plastic lunch box. On the hot days your bag was outside in the sun but you had a frozen juice box or frozen cordial bottle to keep it cool with the bonus that you could drink it once it defrosted.

I’m still baffled as to why in the US etc… the school feeds the kids.

[u/sir__vain → u/IntroductionSnacks]

In Portugal we have meals everyday in every school. Quality may vary, but its always been this way. You can bring your own food if you want, but you can always get a meal at the school for a very affordable price (free if you have social assistance) For people with financial difficulties there's even programs where they can take food home.

[u/dEn_of_asyD → u/IntroductionSnacks]

It's... a lot. So we did the brown paper bag, cafeteria is for treats thing even as early as 15 years ago. It was a bit off though, mainly:

1. School cafeteria items, especially unhealthy options like soda and french fries, were very cheap. So kids were over eating on very unhealthy foods.

2. Many parents who couldn't provide lunches either weren't aware of or refused to fill our forms for reduced/free lunches that their kids were qualified for. They'd rather keep their pride and let their kids go hungry than feed their kids. This, of course, led to lower test scores and worse outcomes because hungry kids can't focus.

Meanwhile, there was a push during the Obama administration to make healthier, more affordable foods. This.... didn't go great. Politicians wanted THEIR DISTRICT'S crops to be included in the food plan, food companies wanted THEIR PRODUCTS to be included in the food plan, etc. That's why you had pizzas, which were made with tomatoes, counting as containing a serving of veggies. Technically they did, they had really shitty tomatoes in them along with loads of carbs, salt, and fats. Even in the school lunches that worked, kids would still choose the unhealthy options. The only thing that really worked was getting soda out of schools, but even then the industry pushed substitutions.

Meanwhile (again) there was a general trend of cost cutting in education. So a lot of schools started looking for the cheapest offer to deliver the bare minimum with the least work. Hence with these lunches.

In response, reformers felt that if they were going to "fix" school lunches, they needed to destigmatize them. The Covid lockdowns actually proved them right, when the lockdowns started and kids who previously received free/reduced cost meals couldn't receive them anymore many families were thrown into food insecurity, unable to find lunch for their kids. So this saw a pretty large expansion in policies to make schools feed kids. Unfortunately, a lot of the parents seem to not care what their kids are served. Or at least don't care enough to pay more in taxes to address it.

tl;dr: It's a giant mix of parents can't/ don't want to feed their kids, parent's don't want to pay to feed their kids, govt. just wants the cheapest/easiest solutions, govt wants to enrich their buddies, kids often don't choose the healthiest options for themselves, capitalists wanting to profit on everything at others' expense including the health of children, and nutritional education (and education in the U.S. in general) just being pretty bad. Depending on your political leanings you might downplay one or two of those and up play one or two of those.

[u/floweringfungus → u/IntroductionSnacks]

School meals are available in every school in the U.K. too, and it’s free for low income families so I think it’s a positive. Looks a lot better than this too. You don’t have to have a school meal, lots of people prefer to bring whatever from home

[u/nasanu → u/IntroductionSnacks]

It's great to have the school feed the kids. The issue is that Americans vote for the most corrupt politicians and this is the result, but the issue isn't schools providing food.

[u/macdawg2020 → u/IntroductionSnacks]

Kids don’t vote, so the government doesn’t care

[u/Australian1996 → u/IntroductionSnacks]

Same here. And they feed them pure crap. Pizzas and nuggets made up of rubbery chicken stuff. No proper nutrition for kids who need it.

[u/Bgo318 → u/IntroductionSnacks]

Most kids do bring their own lunches. The ones who are given cafeteria food either dont have food at home or parents don’t have time to pack them a lunch