Good news!\u00a0 School lunches are well balanced and part of a healthy diet!\u00a0 Unfortunately, school lunches have inappropriately gotten bad press as one cause of childhood obesity.\u00a0 School lunches must meet the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommend no more than 30 percent of calories from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. Regulations also establish a standard to provide one-third of the RDA of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories.\u00a0 Their menus are reviewed every three years for nutritional content, and changes are made based on nutrient calculations.<\/p>\n
All the regulations aside, children\u2019s diets are influenced by their parents and what they eat.\u00a0 If Mom and Dad do not eat fruits and vegetables, their kids are not going to eat them either.\u00a0\u00a0 If children are offered healthy choices most of the time, then occasional fast food is no big deal.\u00a0 Parents need to look at a child\u2019s intake over a period of a week, not just one meal.<\/p>\n
Schools across the nation will be observing National School Lunch Week October 15 through 19, this year. If you haven’t been to your school’s cafeteria lately, this might be a good time to check it out. The School Nutrition Association notes that “School meals served through the National School Lunch Program remain the healthiest lunch option for students across the nation. Schools are offering (even) more whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy items and lean meats.”\u00a0\u00a0 See what’s happening at your school!\u00a0 You may be surprised!\u00a0 I did, and lunch was terrific!\u00a0 My children receive a hot, balanced lunch every day.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t pack a healthier lunch for what they charged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Good news!\u00a0 School lunches are well balanced and part of a healthy diet!\u00a0 Unfortunately, school lunches have inappropriately gotten bad press as one cause of childhood obesity.\u00a0 School lunches must meet the recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommend no more than 30 percent of calories from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. Regulations also Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,780],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e","category-nutrition-2","cat-42-id","cat-780-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/school_lunch_3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9105,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions\/9105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nutritionknowhow.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}