School tends to be problematic as sometimes we do not have enough nutrition to be able to go through the day and be ready to learn. According to Rochelle Davis, an executive director for the Healthy School Campaign, “One of the biggest deficits is the lack of fruits and vegetables and whole grains in our food.” This is a problem, as we need nutrition to be healthy and be able to go through our day with enough calories. According to senior Sam Turney, a senior at IHS, “Most of the meals seem low in quality, with some being worse than others, and I don’t think that they meet nutritional standards for a balanced diet very well. At least from what I’ve seen people actually eat.” Some of the problems come from the lack of money to support a proper meal as some schools are paid $2.28 in coverage to find the least bit of processed food. According to sophomore Evan Barns, the lack of funds shows: “Usually when I don’t have money in my account and get free lunch, I still feel really hungry. They need to provide a better selection because they’re really lacking in the amount of quantity and it doesn’t have to be that great in quality.” Many other kids like Barns tend to have a tough time finding a good choice for free lunches, which should not be an issue. 

School lunches are also important as there are about 55 million teens and children who attend school, which is about 35 percent to 40 percent of their daily calories at school, but a third of the nutrients carried in school lunches are unhealthy. According to sophomore Isabella Neville, “Some of the issues I have with school lunches is just how unhealthy the menus are. They don’t take care of the foods properly and there just seems to be many processed foods that they even ship out.” Although there are many instances in which the school does not give the proper nutrients to students, schools have attempted to encourage kids to try out their vegetable and fruit options. Schools are also now starting to operate programs to make their selection a lot better as now some lunches must have federal nutrition standards. They must provide no more than 30% of calories from fat and less than 10% of saturated fat, and to finally increase whole grains, fruits, and vegetables served through the National School Lunches. Although schools are trying their best to apply for many new programs, and even current programs, to make lunches better, there is still a lack of reinforcement at a local level which leads kids to not want any food and return home with an empty stomach. This could create problems because with a lack of nutrition we cannot go through our day properly, so it is important that school lunches prep with as much food as they can with a variety of nutrition. Another problem we tend to find at our school is that reduced lunches and free lunches have prices that are a little too high to be served in such low quantity or quality. Sophomore Anais Cauchi has a difficult time with the menu. She says, “Pizza should not be $3 dollars a piece. I think they’re overcharging the paid lunches especially since it’s just one slice and this simply makes it more difficult to find ways to be fully fed as all your money gets drained by the efficient enough foods we get.” 

This leads to the tendency of some schools pricing some menu items a little too high as even some of the programs applied to our school are not good enough to provide for lower income students trying to get food and nutrition for their day. According to Ed Bruskt, a food writer, one of the biggest suggestions students tend to make is to improve the nutrition of school lunches by providing more fruits and vegetables to their lunches. Turney says, “Vegetables need to be in our meals for sure, probably whole grains to a lesser extent as well, and some simple snacks like string cheese, mixed nuts, and Greek yogurt would be good.” One of the most frequent missing nutrients are from our fruit and vegetables for our school lunches, and by making it a necessity it would help a lot with having healthier servings for lunches and provide a better diet. This also leads to the fact that providing healthier food options tends to improve academic scores. According to Michael L. Anderson, Justin Gallagher, and Elizabeth Ramirez Ritchie, state that “student test scores go up by four percentile points and that it goes 40 percent higher for students who qualify for reduced-price or free lunches,” which shows that with better lunches we tend to put more effort in our academic work. 

School nutrition is a major component to our everyday student lives, and with the provision of new food programs, higher funds, fruits and vegetables, and a wild selection of healthy food choices this will improve many school experiences and help reduce obesity rates at our school.