Do schools need healthier lunches?

Dae (No)

Schools should not be solely responsible for providing healthier meals for several reasons. Healthier food options are overall more expensive. This is particularly concerning for low-income schools, where budgets are already stretched thin. Providing more nutritious food options may require purchasing more costly ingredients and cooking equipment, which can be difficult for schools to afford. 

Another challenge with demanding healthier school lunches is how much more time-consuming they are to prepare. Healthy meals usually require more preparation, cooking, and clean-up time—often difficult for schools to manage. Many schools need more resources and staff, increasing the difficulty in providing healthy meals for all students. Additionally, healthy foods may not provide the energy and sustenance that students need. Some students require high-calorie, high-protein diets to support their growth and development, and it can be difficult to offer such diets within the constraints of a school lunch program. This can be especially concerning for athletes and other students who have demanding daily physical activities.

Another factor to consider is how parents and families play a crucial role in shaping a child's diet; schools should not be solely responsible for this. While schools can help encourage healthy eating habits, parents must take an active role in teaching their children healthy food choices and options. Finally, some students may have allergies or food sensitivities, making it difficult for schools to provide healthy food options. Schools need to be able to accommodate students with special dietary needs, but it can be challenging to do so in a large-scale school lunch program.

Dougie (Yes)

Eating well is a developmental necessity, and nutrition is foundational to education. Experts agree on the importance and impact of what students eat on their education and lifelong health. Children attend school during a crucial time to create lasting healthy lifestyle habits.

With alarming rates of childhood obesity, supporting learning through nutrition is essential for lowering the risk of chronic illness. Eating well improves muscular and cardiovascular health, boosts immunity, and reduces disease risk. In addition to supporting healthy development, studies link nutritious diets to academic achievement; it's shown to raise test scores, lower absence rates, and increase focus, attention, and memory.

Millions of US students struggle with hunger and depend on school lunches, but the quality and accessibility of these meals continue to fall short on many fronts. Undernourished kids are statistically more likely to experience behavioral and social problems, developmental and motor skill impairments, and repeat grades.

School meals once covered by the CARES Act are no longer free. Low-income families must now apply for the resource, while thousands more still struggle to feed their families no longer qualify. Rising costs due to inflation, coupled with supply and labor inadequacies, further increase the difficulty of providing meals that meet nutrition standards and have raised school meal debt to over $19 million in just half a school year.

Food on cafeteria trays has long been subjected to horrendously low standards, accepting worse quality meat than fast food chains. For years, schools and policymakers have been working to reform and integrate dependable procedures to provide students with equitable access to high-quality food. Still, much progress remains to be made in successfully addressing this vital, multi-faceted issue.