School Lunch Truce?

By Quinn Phillips Earlier this month here at Diabetes Flashpoints, we discussed an effort led by some Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to scale back the school-lunch nutrition standards that Congress mandated as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. Those standards — which cover all food sold in schools during regular hours and impose limits on fat, sodium, and sugar content — have come under fire from food industry–backed groups and many school cafeteria workers, who blame them for a drop in school-lunch sales since they went into effect in 2012. Because of this drop in sales, some school districts are losing money within their lunch programs. According to a new study, however, a little bit of time and patience may be all that is needed to see kids enjoying their healthier lunches. Set to be published in the journal Childhood Obesity, the study is based on a survey of over 500 elementary-school administrators about their school's experience adjusting to the new standards over the 2012–2013 school year. The schools were chosen to approximate a nationally representative sample of all schools. According to an article on the study in The Wall Street Journal, 70% of administrators agreed that by the end of the school year, students generally liked their new lunches. It wasn't always this way: 56% of administrators said that students complained at first about the changes made to their meals and menus. However, 64% of administrat...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs