... School Lunch Programs With the new and improved “heathier” lunch menu most students and teachers would rather turn down this free meal, and head over to their next period class instead. Others see this change to be remarkable and a great way to help kids balance what they eat. Since this act passed in 2010 and was sponsored by first lady Michelle Obama the disputation of a healthier menu has been a nonstop argument between schools and the NCLP (National School Lunch Program). With nothing but good intentions involved most students would rather stick to their bad eating habits. Trading in those fried potato wedges for a whole wheat sub was not so easy for some, and the controversy of a healthy school menu aroused quickly. Kids and even staff seemed uneasy about the change and thought it was a bit drastic. With unhealthy lunch and snacking taking from kids, they look at lunch to be a disadvantage to get rejuvenated for next two to three classes. Most kids are no longer waiting for the bell to dismiss for lunch anymore because of the unappetizing school menu. With nothing but good intentions involved with changing the schools menu kids feel otherwise. National School Lunch Programs thought the idea of what you do should balance out with what you eat and that idea should apply to students as well. Knowing students have no in school activities that requires major movement like running, jumping, etc. Their school lunch now reflects that. Students look at lunch as their...
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...School lunches have changed in cost and content. In the united states we all have choices, go right to work out of high school or pursue a higher education, to participate in the political process by voting or choosing not to vote, to eat and drink without thought or live a healthy lifestyle. One choice has been made for the children of America in recent years, the choice of eating a healthy diet, trading in French fries and chicken nuggets for salad bars and organic beef. With the new menu come health benefits but come with additional costs to tax payers. With childhood obesity reaching all time highs president Barack Obama has implemented changes to what is required in the nations cafeterias. “The Healthy, hunger-free kids act, signed by President Barack Obama in 2010, requires all government-subsidized lunch programs to double the amount of fruits and vegetables they serve to children, and serve only whole grains for all grain products” (Allen, 2012) With these new requirements schools are mandated to meet comes additional cost that is not covered by the budget allocated for the school food programs. Allen (2012) found that the changes will take place in 2013-14, will increase the budget for the school program by $3.2 billion, per meal 14 cents, to the already established $11 billion school lunch program. With increased costs and no new funding the additional cost is passed on to the schools, Allen (2012) one school district Shenedehowa’s, lost $23,000 in a...
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...The National School Lunch Program The most recent change to the National School Lunch program which went into effect July 1, 2012, the first change in over fifteen years, provides nutritious meals that contain one-third of the recommended dietary allowances. Tennessee’s school nutrition program is responsible for all the public schools in Tennessee, which are on the National School Lunch Program. With this change, it became required for schools to increase the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat or fat free milk in school meals. It also includes reducing levels of sodium, saturated fat and trans fat in meals. On January 12, 2010 the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a purposed rule to update the nutrition standards for meals served in schools as part of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010. The main focal point of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 was to improve child nutrition. The child obesity rate and the children who live in poverty that were going hungry were the economic issues that surrounded the act. “During 2007–2008, 20% of U.S. children aged 6–11 years and 18% of persons aged 12–19 years were obese, percentages that have tripled since 1980. Engaging children and adolescents in healthy eating and regular physical activity can lower their risk for obesity and related chronic diseases” (5‐Year Technical Assistance and Guidance Plan for Local School Wellness Policies, 2011). The program authorizes funding and sets the...
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...breakfast and lunch school from what we have? It is important as parents are very concern about what their children have at school for breakfast and lunch. This topic is become sensitive and brought it up to majority by the First Lady, Michelle Obama at Parklawn Elementary School in Alexandria, Virginia as she claimed that she was worried about the food at school as she tried to prepare healthy food for her children (Nixon, 2012.) Moreover changing the breakfast and lunch program can come from many reasons: economic, population, and benefits. In this economy hard time, parents who never have any problem about putting money in pocket might find themselves struggling with financial problem. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, unemployment has steadily risen and reaching 6.7% in November 2008 and also food and energy prices have increased dramatically throughout. As the bad economic continue the more unemployment will grow larger. Due to financial situation, parents are more apply for the breakfast and lunch program. As reported over the last five years the rates have increased annually by 2.5% to 4.1% (Siegel, 2010) and the higher the student participation rates, the higher the amounts of reimbursement the school receives. As shown in the following picture, there is an increase of free and reducing meals only paid meals are decreased. Saved by the Lunch Bell: As Economy Sinks, School Nutrition Program Participation Rises., December 2008 by School Nutrition Association ...
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...Gunderson, Linnekin, Olson and Fischer all have different ideas on how bad this new policy and how it is affecting these kids at school. Each one of these authors describes how these new implications are either wasteful or unappealing to these students. There are a lot of the public schools that are having trouble meeting these new specific requirements for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) but it is getting more difficult to provide these meals. These new items either cost too much or they are very unappealing to the individuals who have to consume them. This is not a good thing to have these children starving from offering unappealing food items that they won’t consume. There will be many factors that play into childhood obesity and how the schools lunches will be the first...
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...Thought: Improving School Lunch Programs Clorissa Torres Lindsay Ludvigsen English 115 February 20, 2013 Schools across the nation have implemented a new breakfast & lunch program, to include healthier choices amongst children, adolescents and teens eating in their school cafeterias every day. The program was designed to allow the children attending school to receive healthy, low cost or free meals while fighting childhood obesity and hunger. The National School Lunch Program is a federally-assisted program implemented across the nation within public or non-profit private schools and day cares with children high school age & under. The program itself is costing 11.1 billion dollars to run in 2012-13 which is only 5.73 percent of the US budget. The money it is costing the US to run the program is allowing 32 million children a chance to have at least two whole meals a day, with a possible snack if they participate in a school-based after school programs. The USDA also provides the schools participating with federal cash and commodity support. The program entails that for each child who receives free lunch, the school will get $2.86 cents back, for each child who receives reduced lunch the school will get $2.46 cents back & for each child who pays for lunch the school will get $.70 cents back ; this also entails that for every snack a child receives free the school will receive $.78 cents, for every snack a child receives reduced the school will receive...
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...generation, to properly teach our children the rights and wrongs of life, and today, we are teaching them the wrong way to eat. Public School Lunch Programs are teaching them that processed foods, high sugar drinks and snacks, are part of a balanced diet, and this is setting up our children for a lifetime of health issues, and adding to an already elevated obesity problem in the United States. Our society, public school system, and parents themselves are setting up our children for an unhealthy lifestyle and a future of health problems by teaching them unhealthy eating habits and feeding them unhealthy food. The days are long gone of the “Farm to Table” cooking methods in our schools that our older generations depended on. Today, we rely on processed foods that are full of additives, fats and sugars. The National School Lunch Program was created by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), when President Harry S. Truman signed the National School Lunch Act in 1946. (USDA.gov 2012) When it began, it actually gave schools recipes on how to cook their meals from scratch, the same way it was being done in homes during that time. (Oliver, L. 2012) But today, the USDA does not regulate what they are serving our children, nor do they regulate how it is cooked. They are simply just a Federal Agency that provides money to schools to help...
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...TO: FROM: Sophie Lee DATE: 27 March 2014 SUBJECT: Newer Policies for New Generations Emerging New Diet On The Table Slowly. The policy acts similar to a law dealing with problems and concerns, but it is influenced by government and nonprofit organizations. Under the government and officials, the public policy is made; the nonprofit organizations advocate the policy making process. The three U.S. government branches, legislative, executive, and judicial, need to be involve and check the new policy before it is applied. The legislative are members of congress such as committee and subcommittee chairs; the bureaucracy players are mainly career bureaucrats such as agency heads and seniors; the interest groups will be the experts, such as powerful leaders in health, welfare, education and more. There are two traditional models, iron triangles and issue networks, which define how the government leaderships work together. The connection among the politicians, officials, and interest group helps how the public receives the supports. Mainly, interest groups have too much control and power on iron triangle. Starting from the electoral support from the interest group towards congress, funding and political support delivered to the bureaucracy, which provides facilities and special favors. On the other hand, the issue network uses much broader networking within the agencies, congressional committees, and interest groups. The model allows experts such as interest groups, members...
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...School Breakfast and Lunch Programs The Positive Effects on Students and Families The topic of concern that I am going to address is how school breakfast and lunch programs impact the family in various ways. School meal programs, especially breakfast programs, have gotten a significant amount of attention in recent years due to the many studies that have shown the benefits of having these programs. These studies have shown that students who participate in school breakfast programs have better nutrition, less hunger, more food security, better performance in school, and the program could even improve the likelihood that students will eat breakfast on a regular basis (Bartfeld & Ryu, 2011). School breakfast and lunch programs are moving toward having a 100% participation rate, because when students who participated in the programs were analyzed and compared with the non-participation students, results showed significant differences in the categories listed above. (Moffitt, 1995). Being a Dietetics student, I am extremely aware of the importance of nutritious school meal programs because children spend most of their habit-forming years in school. Students need to develop positive breakfast and lunch choices in order to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle in the future. As I briefly stated before, there have been studies done to compare the students who participate in school breakfast and lunch programs with the students who choose not to. The findings indicated that...
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...Lunch school programs are trying to become healthier across our nation. This initiative is becoming more common at each school due to economic and student needs. In this paper, we will look at meeting the needs of the students with a planned process. There will be two charts to show progress of the effects the changes have done to the student’s food choices. These choices were derived from the guides given by the USDA (“National School Lunch Program”, 2013). Recent changes to the schools lunch and breakfast menus has helped in keeping students more healthy and driving school cost to more efficient levels (“National School Lunch Program”, 2013). Most schools give students choices to choose their lunch or breakfast choices. While this is a common practice in most schools, students do not always choose healthy meals. The goal is to give only healthy choices to students so that they may increase their nutrition level intake. The guidelines set forth by the USDA, on the student meal index, is what will be used to assess the changes in students nutrition levels (Kay & Condon, 2012 pg 9). The first major change that needs to be done is re-asses the snack machines in the schools. Each school more than likely has one or two snack machines that are accessed by the students. The contents of the snack machines need to be changed to more health conscious items. An example is replacing sodas, or high sugar drinks, with water and low sugar juices. Each school needs to replace candy...
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...School Breakfast and Lunch Programs The Positive Effects on Students and Families The topic of concern that I am going to address is how school breakfast and lunch programs impact the family in various ways. School meal programs, especially breakfast programs, have gotten a significant amount of attention in recent years due to the many studies that have shown the benefits of having these programs. These studies have shown that students who participate in school breakfast programs have better nutrition, less hunger, more food security, better performance in school, and the program could even improve the likelihood that students will eat breakfast on a regular basis (Bartfeld & Ryu, 2011). School breakfast and lunch programs are moving toward having a 100% participation rate, because when students who participated in the programs were analyzed and compared with the non-participation students, results showed significant differences in the categories listed above. (Moffitt, 1995). Being a Dietetics student, I am extremely aware of the importance of nutritious school meal programs because children spend most of their habit-forming years in school. Students need to develop positive breakfast and lunch choices in order to develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle in the future. As I briefly stated before, there have been studies done to compare the students who participate in school breakfast and lunch programs with the students who choose not to. The findings indicated that...
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...changes in school lunches are beneficial to everyone that is involved. Children are becoming obese sooner in life do to not eating the right things at school. If we supply breakfast and a healthier lunch for children, they would be a lot healthier. This brochure should inform you of the benefits for your children to eat healthier. Congress passed the National School Lunch Act in 1946 to support commodity prices after World War II by reducing farm surpluses while providing food to schoolchildren. By 1970, the program was providing 22 million lunches on an average day, about a fifth of them subsidized. Since then, the subsidized portion has grown while paid lunches have declined, but not since 1972 have so many additional children become eligible for free lunches as in fiscal year 2010, 1.3 million. Today it is a $10.8 billion program providing 32 million lunches, 21 million of which are free or at reduced price. The number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last school year from 18 million in 2006-7, a 17 percent increase, according to an analysis by The New York Times of data from the Department of Agriculture (Sam Dillion, New York Times, Nov. 30, 2011). Some children only get to eat food at school. In Dallas, Newark and Chicago, for instance, about 85 percent of students are eligible, and most schools also offer free breakfasts. Now, some places have added free supper programs, fearing that needy students otherwise will go to bed hungry. Our school systems...
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...A. Topic This is a recommendation to start a new summer program for children with the purpose to encourage reading. The new program will be entitled “Read and Feed Crafts Program” and will be available to children ranging in age 18 months to 16 years. The children will receive a hot lunch, and a free library card. They could spend time reading, playing games, or learning different crafts. It also includes reading incentives for independent reading for reading to others. The program would run for six weeks between the hours of 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Suggestions for funding would include securing a Title I grant (Education, 2011). There are some low income families living in this neighborhood. In addition, the library could seek the assistance of volunteers to participate in the program. B. Purpose The purpose is to encourage the library to consider the idea of setting up this new program in the community during the summer time to encourage the children to enhance their reading skills and development of relationships with their peers. Summer is a great time to encourage children to read books. Reading will help to improve literacy skills and better prepare children for the upcoming school year. One of the best ways to get a child reading is to allow them to pick books they want to read about topics that interest them. Many of the children in the area of the library are from low income families and do not readily have the opportunity to experience something...
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...Academic Performance of Elementary Pupils in Relation to their Nutritional Status I. What are the different factors that affect the academic performance of elementary pupils? This study deals with the factors that determine the school-related performance of elementary students; in particular to their health and nutritional status. The objectives of this article are relevant to the health and nutritional conditions of many school children, especially in public schools. In this same fashion, this is also related to the relationship between the academic performance of the school children and their nutritional health. All these aspects are vital in promoting a quality and effective education as well as providing the elementary pupils an equality of rights in learning. However, governments in various nations are constructing new class rooms, providing textbooks and other learning materials for the elementary students; as well as efficient trainings for the teachers in order to improve the quality of education among elementary levels. Still, there is a big difference between healthy school children and the non-healthy children when it comes to acquiring effective learning process in the school. (http://docs.schoolnutrition.org/newsroom/jcnm/05spring/fns.asp) According to the World Health Organization, most of the elementary children are lack if energy-protein nutritional elements that help in boosting the children’s weight and height. More than this, the most prevailing...
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...sensationalism as a campaign of misinformation to undermine a product used for more than ten years to supplement lean beef supplies used in ground beef. The depiction of LFTB in the media as “pink slime” raised the product’s “yuck” factor and implied that there were food safety issues with LFTB, mainly because ammonium gas is used as an antimicrobial intervention in the production of LFTB. Also, the fact that ground beef purchased for the school lunch program could contain LFTB triggered consumer calls for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to immediately end the practice. Ground beef is the most popularly consumed beef item among American consumers, and consumers have increasingly demanded lean ground beef. USDA approved the process that Beef Products, Inc. (BPI), the primary producer of LFTB, uses to produce LFTB, and USDA continues to affirm that LFTB is a safe, nutritious beef product. Although LFTB received negative press in previous years, the uproar starting in March 2012 has had greater impacts. USDA changed its policy on school lunches to allow schools to have a choice of whether to buy ground beef with LFTB or not. Major grocery chains announced that they were discontinuing the use of LFTB in retail ground beef. The result has been an immediate, sharp decline in 50% beef trimming prices, and expectations of higher ground beef prices. Some companies decided to voluntarily use LFTB labels on ground beef containing the product. Some food safety advocates who believe BPI was a...
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