School meal

American schoolchildren eating hot school lunches (1941)

A school meal is a meal (usually lunch or dinner) provided to students at a school. It is usually served at sometime around noon, however many also serve breakfast before classes begin in the mornings. The purpose is to ensure the proper nutrition and health of children, so that they may learn more effectively.

Some schools have theme days whereby food is served in a particular style. For example, the school might serve Chinese cuisine to celebrate the Chinese New Year. There may also be weekly recurring themes, such as "Taco Tuesdays", "Macaroni Mondays," or pizza at the end of the week.

School meals by country

Finland

Free school dinners in elementary and secondary s blah blah chools have been served nationwide since October 9, 1948. In some cities poor people were offered free school dinners from the beginning of the 20th century (eg. from 1902 in Kuopio, extending to all students in 1945).

In Finland also the lunches in Higher Education are subsidized. The Social Insurance Institution of Finland compensates 0,67 euros per student's daily meal. The meals served are to be as healthy and nutritionally balanced as possible.

Special diets based on religious, cultural or ethical choices or restrictions due to allergies are served with no extra cost.

India

See also Mid-day Meal Scheme

Under the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), government schools and partially-aided schools, along with Anganwadis, provide mid-day meals to the students attending such institutions, known as the Mid-day Meal Scheme. The meals served are free of cost and meet guidelines that have been set by the policy. The history of the program can be traced to 1925, making it one of the oldest free food programs for school children.

A single afternoon lunch usually contains a cereal which is locally available, made in a way acceptable to the prevailing local customs. Vegetables cooked as curry or soups and a portion of milk is allotted for each child. The menu is occasionally varied to appeal to students.

Japan

In Japan, 99% of elementary school students and 82% of junior high school students eat kyūshoku, or school lunch. Parents pay 250 to 300 yen per student for the cost of the ingredients, with labour costs being funded by local authorities. The tradition started in the early 20th century. After the war – which brought near-famine conditions to Japan – the provision of school lunches was re-introduced in urban areas, initially with skimmed milk powder and later flour donated by an American charity. School lunch was extended to all elementary schools in Japan in 1952 and, with the enaction of the School Lunch Law, to junior high schools in 1954.

Usually, all meals provided on a given day are identical for all pupils of a Japanese school. The menu is planned by dieticians and changes daily. The average menu has gone through a large deal of change since the basic meals of the 1950s, as Japan grew economically.

School lunches were traditionally based on bread or bread roll, bottled or cartoned milk (introduced from 1958 to replace milk powder), a dessert, and a dish which changed daily. Popular dishes from the early days included inexpensive protein sources, such as stewed bean dishes and fried white fish. Whale meat, another cheap protein, was common until the 1970s. Provisions of rice were introduced in 1976, following a surplus of (government-distributed) Japanese rice, and became increasingly frequent during the 1980s. Hamburg steak, stew and Japanese curry became staples as well. Today, school lunches are a diverse affair, including soup and side dishes. Dishes range from Asian dishes such as naengmyeon, tom yam and ma po tofu, to western dishes such as spaghetti, stew and clam chowder.

Sweden

School dinner has been free in Swedish elementary and secondary schools since 1993. Normally, the lunch is prepared like a buffet, where pupils serve themselves as much as they want (mainly potatoes/rice, meat/fish and vegetables). Milk and water are usually offered as drinks.

United Kingdom

In the UK, school meals were first introduced in the 1870s to combat the high levels of malnutrition amongst children in poor areas. In 1944 it was made compulsory for local authorities to provide school dinners, with legal nutritional requirements. Free school meals were available to children with families on very low incomes.

As a result, staple traditional "school dinner" foods became embedded in the national psyche from the 1950s onwards. "School puddings" in particular refers to desserts traditionally (historically) served with school dinners, in both state schools and private schools. Examples include tarts such as gypsy tart and Manchester tart and hot puddings such as spotted dick and treacle sponge pudding.

In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government ended entitlement to free meals for thousands of children, and obliged local authorities to open up provision of school meals to competitive tender. This was intended to reduce the cost of local-authority-provided school meals, but caused an enormous drop in the standard of food being fed to children. A 1999 survey by the Medical Research Council suggested that despite rationing, children in 1950 had healthier diets than their counterparts in the 1990s, with more nutrients and lower levels of fat and sugar.

This became a major topic of debate in 2004 when chef Jamie Oliver spearheaded a campaign to improve the quality of school meals. School dinners at state schools are usually made by outside caterers whose incentive is increasing their profits. Since many of the requirements for nutritional content were removed in the 1980s, there is little reason for caterers to sell anything other than cheap, profitable, low quality food, particularly deep-fried fast-food like chips.

After a television documentary was shown on Channel 4 (Jamie's School Dinners), the public showed support for the increase of funding for school meals, causing the government to create the School Food Trust. The topic became a factor in the 2005 UK general election.

United States

The National School Lunch Program was created in 1946 when President Truman signed the National School Lunch Act into law. The National School Lunch Program is a federal nutrition assistance program operating in over 101,000 public and non-profit private schools and residential care institutions. Regulated and administered at the federal level by the Food and Nutrition Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), it currently provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to more than 30 million U.S. children each school day. In its 60-year history, the program has expanded to include the School Breakfast Program, Snack Program, Child and Adult Care Feeding Program and the Summer Food Service Program. At the State level, the National School Lunch Program is usually administered by State education agencies, who operate the program through agreements with school food authorities.

Recipient of the School Lunch Program in 1936.

Generally, public or nonprofit private schools of high school grade or under and public or nonprofit private residential child care institutions may or may not participate in the school lunch program. School districts and independent schools that choose to take part in the lunch program get cash minimal subsidies and donated commodities from the USDA for each meal they serve. In return, they must serve lunches that meet Federal requirements, and they must offer free or reduced price lunches to eligible children. School food authorities can also be reimbursed for snacks served to children through age 18 in after-school educational or enrichment programs.

School lunches must meet the applicable recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which state that no more than 30 percent of an individual's calories come from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. Regulations also establish a standard for school lunches to provide one-third of the Recommended Dietary Allowances of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories. School lunches must meet Federal nutrition requirements over the course of one week's worth of lunches served, but decisions about what specific foods to serve and how they are prepared are made by local school food authorities. The 2007 School Nutrition and Dietary Assessment III (SNDA III) study based on research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture during the 2004-2005 school year found that students in more than 90% of schools surveyed had the opportunity to select lunches that were consistent with dietary standards for fat and saturated fat.

School nutrition programs are increasingly using more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean protein and lowfat dairy in school lunches. Efforts such as the Local School Wellness Policies required by the 2004 Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act have involved parents, students and the school community in efforts to promote healthy eating environments and increased physical activity throughout school campuses.

In 2009, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies released School Meals: Building Blocks For Healthy Children which reviewed and provided recommendations to update the nutrition standard and the meal requirements for the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program. School Meals also set standards for menu planning that focus on food groups, calories, saturated fat, and sodium and that incorporate Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Dietary Reference Intakes.

Unhealthy school lunches are one of the contributors of malnutrition in the form of excessive consumption of unhealthy foods, however, some measures are being taken to change that. An example is the Berkeley Food System project which utilizes vegetable gardens to promote education for healthy eating. Janet Brown,who started the project explained that students are more likely to eat healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables if they are better introduced to them.

See also

• Free school meals
• HealthTeacher
• Nutrition
• Personal, Social and Health Education
• School Food Trust
• School Health Education Study
• School health services
• Welfare

References

• http://icds.gov.in/
• http://www.schoolsandhealth.org/sites/ffe

External links

• Channel 4 site for Jamie's School Dinners
• "Food matters" site by BBC
• Mississippi Teacher Corps Focus Paper on School Lunch
• "RCS FreeToEat - Info on Rawmarsh School
• Food Stories — Explore a century of revolutionary change in UK food culture on the British Library's Food Stories website