More students are served taxpayer-funded school lunches

Six out of ten students are eating taxpayer-funded meals at school, according to a press release from the Michigan Department of Education.

The number of school meals provided has increased since last year, but it may not equate to healthier students and could mean more wasted food.

In the 2023-24 school year, the state enacted a law to provide taxpayer-funded school meals for all students, with no limit on family income. As a result, the percentage of students eating breakfast and lunch at school jumped 26% and 20%, respectively. Last year five out of ten students at meals at school. This year it is six out of ten.

“Our children need to eat a healthy breakfast and lunch in order to learn,” said Michael Rice, state superintendent, in the press release.

Experts say that school lunches, in general, provide better nutrition than home and restaurant-cooked meals. The final results, though, depend on whether students eat the fruits, vegetables, and other healthy options on their plate.

The data on how many school meals are served were based on an average that combines K-12 school buildings in the state, according to Kenneth Coleman, spokesperson for the education department. Before the state made no-fee meals available to students, five out of ten students chose to eat a meal at school.

“The meal pattern provided by USDA dictates the type of food and the serving size by grade,” Coleman told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email. He added that all food served is also regulated by the local health department. The state food safety code for handling leftovers, he added.

School meals may not always be as healthy as they should be. “Today, in the absence of any standard on added sugars, 90% of schools provide school breakfast with more than the recommended 10% of calories from added sugars, and 69% of schools exceed this limit for lunch,” according to a Science Direct report evaluating public school nutrition in the United States.

The report pointed to findings from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that found that although sodium has decreased in school meals, it still largely exceeds the amount found in dietary guidelines.

School meals can be better aligned with the dietary guidelines for Americans, Juliana Cohen, one of the report’s co-authors, told CapCon in an email.

Cohen concluded that school meals are on average one of the healthiest sources of food that children have access to in the United States. That benefit can be negated, however, if students throw away the healthier portions of their meals.

Catherine Cochran, policy associate at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, agreed with Cohen. “School meals are healthy — a 2021 study found that school meals were the healthiest source of food for kids — followed by grocery stores, other sources, worksites, and restaurants,” Cochran said in an email.

Meals have significantly improved since 2012 due to the Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act of 2010, Cochran said. The act removed junk food from schools and reduced salt and unhealthy fat while increasing fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

But a Journal of School Health study concludes that offerings in the National School Lunch Programs could vary greatly in nutritional quality.

As the majority of students have begun eating at schools, childhood obesity has increased over the last 20 years.

“Today, overweight children outnumber undernourished children,” according to School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children, a 2010 book published by the National Academy of Sciences.

Although students may be getting fruits, vegetables, protein and whole grains in school meals, some experts question the quality of the food.

“Your child’s public school lunches may be held to lower quality criteria than even fast food,” stated an article Public School Review. The article noted a USA Today inspection in 2009 revealed some schools were using meat from old birds.

Public School Review did not respond to an email seeking comment.

More than $1.2 billion of school food is wasted annually, according to an article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

A 2016 nutrition study by the Student Nutrition Association revealed that fruit and vegetable waste is a major problem in school lunch programs.

“Fruit and vegetable plate waste increases costs for school nutrition departments and may compromise the health of children because they miss out on vital nutrients from the fruits and vegetables they do not consume,” said the association.