The study involved 409 boys and 427 girls in the fifth grade across 19 schools in East Japan. Outside school, however, household income is associated with food and nutrient intake among schoolchildren in Japan, according to a study published last year in the journal Public Health Nutrition. Healthy government school lunches you'll actually want to make at home “I thought that was a really beautiful concept.” “They are able to sit in the classroom, in a more relaxed environment, to have the food, and one thing that really stood out to me was how often the children were willing to at least try a taste of the different foods on their trays – in part, out of respect to say thank you to the people who had spent all that time making that meal,” she said. “I was fortunate enough to be able to go and actually see for myself a school lunch there, and one of the things that I thought was particularly nice about it was that the children serve each other,” Cohen said. On the other side of the globe, Japan is one country that has stood out to Cohen in terms of the quality of the school lunch experience. Some of the changes made included allowing schools to serve 1% flavored milk instead of fat-free flavored milk and included exemptions to schools experiencing challenges in meeting the standard for providing 100% whole-grain-rich foods. Last year, the Trump administration scaled back school meal nutritional requirements that were set under the Obama administration in 2012, allowing states to grant exemptions to schools when meeting certain lunch menu standards related to whole grains, salt and milk. USDA shifts Obama-era school lunch guidelines It’s estimated that nearly one in five school-age children and teens is obese. Healthy lunches are important in the US since the percentage of children and teens affected by obesity has more than tripled since the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two years later in 2016, the program provided reduced-cost or free lunches to more than 30.4 million children at a cost of $13.6 billion. In 2014, the program fed about 30 million children each school day and cost $12.7 billion. In the US, several federal programs support children’s nutritional needs, including the National School Lunch Program, a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions to provide low-cost or free lunches to children each school day. When it comes to the nutrition value of school lunches, Cohen pointed out that when schools collaborate with professional chefs to develop tasty and healthy lunch menus, students are more willing to eat their fruits and vegetables.įor some students, “schools can provide access to foods that children may not otherwise be able to have, and so this is an opportunity for children to have exposure to be able to eat these healthier foods when they may not be able to have them at home,” Cohen said. That’s particularly evident in the US, she added. Yet various factors not related to nutrition value – such as the time of day or length of the lunch period – can influence how healthy school lunch can be for a child, she said. “The United States actually has some of the best nutrition standards in the world for school meals in terms of providing healthier foods to children,” Cohen said. So what are they eating for lunch, and how could it affect their health? Here is a sampling of how children experience lunchtime around the world. Globally, the number of overweight or obese children 5 and younger climbed from 32 million in 1990 to 41 million in 2016, according to the World Health Organization. Obesity can increase the risk of chronic diseases including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, arthritis and even some cancers. In other places, school cafeterias sell hot dishes, sandwiches and tiny milk boxes children might pack a home-cooked meal or they might go home for lunch.Ī spotlight has been turned on what children eat for lunch in the wake of a rising obesity epidemic among the world’s youth. In many parts of the world, schools can barely afford classroom supplies, let alone daily meals, but nonprofit organizations or government programs often step in with feeding programs to provide free meals that include meat and veggies.
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