The (Food) Fight for Better School Lunches

By ISABELLA MASON

Haley Chen contributed to this article.

If you grew up in a public school, you are likely very familiar with bland cheese pizzas served on paper trays, a side of over-steamed corn, and a carton of milk.

These “balanced” meals haven’t evolved much since their creation, with President Harry Truman’s School Lunch Act in 1946, to Michelle Obama’s Hunger-Free Kids Act 64 years later. However, for students today, everything we know and love – or hate – about school lunches might be about to change.

The reason is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s new Secretary of Health and Human Services. The controversial “Make America Healthy Again” advocate wants to eliminate ultra-processed food and unnatural ingredients from American diets and create new nutrition standards, including ones that target sodium and fat levels in school lunches.

By now, you probably know that America has a health problem. In the past three decades, childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents, meaning that approximately 14.7 million of America’s youth are obese.

Even though Americans spend more than other countries on healthcare, our health outcomes are often worse than those in other developed nations. We’re behind, for example, in life expectancy and unmanaged diabetes. A good place to start fixing this would be school lunch.

The customer seems to agree. While a national report by the nonprofit No Kid Hungry found that 64% of students think school lunch tastes good, only 55% said that it’s high quality.

“[School lunch] is really a last resort for me if I need to get through the day without having pain,” said Samira Compaore ‘26. “I only eat it when I'm really hungry.”

In 2023, a Queens student took a proactive approach to the issue, starting an Instagram account (@bsgelunch) to document their experience in the cafeteria and hoping to inspire change. One post says: “Mac n cheese: tastes as bad as it looks.” Another says, “Overall: 3/10 gonna retake a break from school food.”

Not only does Thursday’s sloppy joe sandwich not look or taste good, but lunches like these leave students unsatisfied when what they chow down on often becomes repetitive.

“It's the same chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks, and pizza,” said senior Ethan Henry. “Every year they say they're going to change it, but it really hasn't changed much.”

“For breakfast, there’s no variety. It’s the exact same foods over and over and over again,” said junior Karen Zevelev.

The New York City Department of Education has a budget for its one million students of nearly $40 billion, but less than 2% of that (about $600 million) goes towards food services. (Most of the DOE’s budget goes to wages, benefits, and pensions for teachers.)

School lunch costs New York City $6 per student, but the federal government reimburses about $4.50 of that for low income students. So in reality, NYC is only spending about $1.50 on school lunch for most students. Why can’t we double, or even triple that?

The DOE should have the funds to hire well-trained chefs and choose fresher ingredients, but instead they stick to highly processed meals. Is this a worldwide issue, or is it unique to American high schools? Let’s take a look at what other countries are cooking up.

Finland is one of the few countries to offer universal free school meals, and each lunch must include a warm main dish like rice or pasta with meat, a salad, milk, and a plant-based drink.

Even in Brazil, a much poorer country than ours, school lunches are not only free, they’re required to have ingredients sourced from local family farms. A typical Brazilian school lunch includes some type of protein, rice and cooked beans, cassava flour, and salad. One commonality? The lunch is cooked fresh in the kitchens of each school.

In essence, other countries are doing school lunch better than the U.S., sometimes with smaller budgets. According to a study conducted by the Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition, Finland spends around $3 per student and Brazil only $0.32, with both countries also having obesity rates below the global average, according to the World Obesity Observatory.

School lunch in France is a little costlier than ours (about $8), but it includes restaurant-ready items like steak, carrots, green beans, cheese, and fresh fruit. With America’s resources, there’s no reason why we can’t compete in nutrition and quality with these nations.

The U.S. knows what works, and we’ve done it in kitchens of select NYC public schools. Chefs in the Schools is a menu development, chef training and education program, in partnership with the NYC DOE Office of Food and Nutrition Services. It began in 2021 with the launch of NYC’s first chef council, consisting of culinary professionals and food activists.

These chefs not only prepare lunches in house every day to ensure the freshness of meals, they also teach students how to make healthy recipes at home. Their menus include butternut squash mac and cheese, chicken shawarma, and curry potatoes, just to name a few.

While this program only ran in NYC through the 2021-2022 and 2023-2024 school years, Chefs in the Schools has been implemented in over 2,000 schools nationwide, feeding over 1 million students.

Besides stepping up food quality, the DOE should also make sure they’re actually addressing the needs and wants of students and not contributing to a cycle of food waste.

“Schools should ask students for recommendations, like a poll or survey on the DOE website,” said Compaore. “They should cater to the students instead of just putting out what they think is best for them, and then having [students] not eat it.”

The fix to American school lunches really could be as easy as pie, and the proof would be in the pudding. With the DOE’s $40 billion budget, funds need to be reallocated towards feeding students a healthier, tastier lunch, avoiding the frozen pizza and rockhard chicken nuggets we see every week. Prioritizing students’ health doesn’t mean lunches lose their flavor, as the DOE could shift to all fresh ingredients, like roasted vegetables, rice, and grilled chicken, prepared in-house every day.

“[These school lunches] would have a much better taste, as they’re freshly made and not stale,” said senior Evan Germain-Thompson. “The appeal of the food would also be much better with professional chefs making the food.”

Rather than solely advocating for the removal of ultra-processed foods from school lunch, federal administrators such as Kennedy should shift their attention to implementing programs such as Chefs in the Schools countrywide. Through policy that limits additives in juices and cereals, addresses food deserts, and increases access to healthy food options, we can begin the fight against not only obesity, but also food insecurity.

Moreover, the HHS and DOE should begin the creation of nationwide nutrition classes that teach students to take charge of their health by learning how to cook their own balanced meals at home, and impart on them the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Teaching healthy habits starts in the classroom, and required nutrition classes could turn the tide for American diets.

By simply raising their budget for food services from 2% to 3% of total funds, the DOE could make massive changes to what students eat every day. They should implement programs like Chefs in the Schools to ensure that school lunches not only remain free, but healthy and delicious for all students. Now that’s some food for thought.