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Federal School Lunches Linked to Obesity
Filed under: In The News, Research Reveals: Big Kids, Research Reveals: Tweens, Research Reveals: Teens
New research shows that kids who eat breakfast actually weigh less. Credit: Corbis
Science Daily reports that new research funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that kids who participate only in the federal government's National School Lunch Program are more likely to become overweight, but kids who participate in the federally-funded breakfast program and the lunch program are slimmer than most.
Researchers from Southern Methodist University, Georgia State University and Kuwait University looked at data on more than 13,500 elementary school students, and found that kids who eat both breakfast and lunch under the federal program weigh less than kids who only eat lunch, as well as kids who do not participate in the program at all.
The students were also interviewed in kindergarten, first and third grades, and again in later grades.
The USDA reimburses schools for a portion of their school lunch costs, and also donates surplus food items. The USDA also requires that the meals meet certain nutritional guidelines, but it does allow the schools to choose the foods it serves.
"The fact that federally-funded school lunches contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic is disconcerting, although not altogether surprising," study co-author and economist Daniel L. Millimet tells Science Daily.
Schools are allowed to serve additional items on an a la carte basis under the program, and those foods may fall outside the federal guidelines for nutrition.
"First, it is very difficult to plan healthy but inviting school lunches at a low price," Millimet tells Science Daily. "Second, given the tight budgets faced by many school districts, funding from the sales of a la carte lunch items receives high priority."
The study was published in the The Journal of Human Resources.
Related: First Lady Urges Congress to Act on School Meals
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 3)
8-29-2010 @ 6:37AM
lee said...hmmm... Sasha Obama attends a private school and she's obese. Those private schools better check their lunches too!
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8-29-2010 @ 7:02AM
namkari said...Duuhhh!!!!!
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8-29-2010 @ 8:23AM
Vicki said...If my kid wants to eat a candy bar for lunch or burger and fries so be it....I don't need anyone, especially the government telling me can what my child eat. We have good healthy meals at home...I'm not ignorant to what we need to eat to be healthy.
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8-29-2010 @ 1:07PM
L. said...WoW! Sounds like you are already doing the right thing anyway...What works for you.....But some parents are not as smart as you are. To be able to pick out good things to eat when not in school. Some people just have a hard time picking out a menu.....So do not take things so personal.....My concern about school lunches...is if the students are eating junk food ( all those good things we like to snack on) for their school lunch...They#1 are not going to be able to sit still and keep an open mind for the teacher because they are all hyped up on SUGAR/High Fuctose and it makes the rest of the day just flat out difficult for teacher and student. Students won't be able to make it until the end of the school day. We did an experiment once in scool..where we had baby carrots for a snack and then the next day we hard that yummy chocolate bar....It was a real eye opener as to the enegery left for the day with the carrots carrying you on through...Needless to say I decided to save my Chocolate peanut butter cups til the end of my school day.......
8-29-2010 @ 8:23AM
vicvod said...Sitting all day in front of a computer, video game,TV,etc. sure isn't helping. Parents driving kids everywhere, (get on a bike) isn't helping. We ate the same stuff, probably worse, but we actually went outside and did stuff. Quit blaming everything and everybody else! Sound just like a Liberal!
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8-29-2010 @ 10:09AM
Joe Maira said...Everything Lame and STUPID is blamed on Liberals...... Just the way it should be !!!! vicvod, I love you !!! Keep telling the truth !!!
8-29-2010 @ 8:31AM
Meanstr said...Lets make it easy put schools Ele and Mit back in the Neighborhoods so kids can walk home for lunch,And don't tell me they will not get feed ,I pay Taxs so some can collect welfare isn't that money suposed to be used to feed the kids.Fat kids are from parrents who when the kids were babies constantly stuck a bottle in their mouths to quiet them .And the people who made kids who were not hungragy eat 3 meals a day and emptly their plates.So stop blaming the schools for everything the Schools Job is to teach and not do what the Parrents need to be doing for their kids health and hasn't anyone noticed in most cases Fat Parrents have fat Kids the whole family over eats'
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8-29-2010 @ 10:14AM
Fran said...I attended elementary school when the goal was passing President Kennedy's physical fitness tests. We ate lunch prepared by our "lunch ladies" who came into school early every morning to fix it. There were always hot cooked meals served. Balanced meals. And your choice of drink was either milk in a carton or water out of the fountain. Once in a while our Principal would stand at the "return" window. The ladies in the kitchen had told her too much food was being returned and dumped into the large garbage cans. On those days, we kids got a heads up and drank our milk quickly and put all the unwanted food into the milk carton! But then the Principal started lifting the milk cartons on your return tray. We couldn't win. Yep, room temperature milk or water....and if you didn't like that you could "lump it" ....and before long your milk proved that. Who got fat in elementary school? No one sitting around me.
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8-29-2010 @ 9:01AM
Susan Jones said...Of course not. Duh, it isn't the lunch that is making them fat. It is the parents buying whatever is fattening and letting them eat too much at home. Most of the kids probably are going home alone and in the house with all that fattening food and snacks and have eat all they want until the parents come home. I am a fat girl. I know how I got fat. The parents don't give them limits. And they should not buy the fattening stuff in the first place. The parents are probably fat too!
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8-29-2010 @ 1:41PM
Dina said...Thanks Susan, I am a former Child Nutrition Manager. In our County we had guidlines, strict. No child ever left a line without a full balanced lunch, Meat, Vegetable, Fruit and Dairy product on their trays. If the kids brought their lunch from home they had to bring it to the cashier if they wanted to purchase extra's, (whole grain chips, low sugar cake, low sugar ice cream). No child ever just ate junk for lunch unless their parents put it into their lunch box. The myths of lunch ladies and their lunches are a bunch of BS. Parents use to bring in McDonalds, Chick Filet, Wendy's, Pizza Hut, I never thought this was fair. It was like a slap in the face I even had a parent start a fire in the microwave from heating up a Chick Filet sandwich for her daughter. Everytime there is a b-day - cookies, brownies,cake and candy from parents, everytime good grades in a classroom pizza party, ice cream party. Don't reward with food is my moto and don't push kids to eat everything on their trays, their stomachs can't even handle all the food, Teachers are very bad about this, turns the kids against school lunches and those same teachers don't check the lunch bags and make sure they eat everything that was sent from home, which half the time, had cake, cookies, candy, even soda. I use to have a middle school student bring in a 2 liter Soda Bottle everyday and drink the whole thing, nothing was ever said. I could go on but this is getting long. Thanks for sticking up for us.
8-29-2010 @ 12:46PM
RonParra said...Children learn eating patterns at home. As the FSD at an Elementary Catholic School some of our students don't recognize basis vegetables served. Why, because parents either don't cook and serve their children what is good for them. We are bound by the NSLP Government Wellness Policy and do not serve a la carte items.Our students are allergic to knives and forks because of the fast food influence and the excuses of busy parents and their children's busy athletic and social schedules. Mrs.Obama should check what her husbands' USDA department that allocates commodities and start sending more fresh fruits and vegetables. These are rare commodities received. Furthermore, more financial assistance would allow FSD to purchase these products, however under current ridiculous reimbursement rates that is impossible. Most FSD are doing a great job. Also, you should see the junk in the brown bags from home that our lunch buyers don't receive or buy at school. Wake up Washington.
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8-29-2010 @ 9:06AM
Janice said...Given that when kids ate BOTH the breakfast AND the lunch, my thought is that it isn't the lunch that's making the kids fat. If it were, then any child who ate the lunch would be fat. I'm wondering if the children who eat ONLY the lunch are hungrier therefore they eat more. Could it be that they don't get breakfast at home or the breakfast they do get at home is super sugary? Then they come to school and eat the lunch, but by that time they're hungrier than the kids that had the school breakfast, therefore they eat more. I think the wrong conclusion was made.
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8-29-2010 @ 9:14AM
555b said...Oh please it's more like lazy parents and LOT"S of lazy over indulged kids.You soo can't have one without the other.PARENTS BUY AND SERVE THE FOOD KIDS DON"T!! School lunch is one meal a day.The only way they are getting fat from that is if they eat 8 of them a day.Wow people really love to blame and stay in big time denial.You kid is fat blame yourself and change it!!!
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8-29-2010 @ 9:16AM
Loren said...To much food and no exercise makes kids fat. You people are rediquless. They are getting free food, like most you want to look a gift horse in the mouth. Most fat kids are fat because they are lazy and need to get off their fat butts and do something. Its just like Americans to want to blame someone else for their problems when in reality it is the individuals issue and not the food that is the culprit. Kids are fat because they are lazy. Get their fat asses away from the TV and outside to play, run and exercise. Don't say that I'm being cural either I'm a former fat kid and it isknowones fault but my own.
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8-29-2010 @ 6:06PM
CALAL said...TO LOREN.to your comment.lazy kids..kids are going to eat what they want to eat.yes that is real.i hope you feel good about calling them lazy.i am 52.we use to run all over as kids.now we live in a new world.both mom and dad work.kids cant go anywere.kids get killed more then ever .there not lazy they our in prison in there own homes.we use to sleep outside.ya shit happen but not like to day.let a kid go to a park.he might not come home.today life is a night mare.maybe be your rich and dont work.good for you.but when mom and dad both work to feed and pay bill's.i want my kid home.were they need help is at school.but we are laying off teach.all the time.how dare you.
8-29-2010 @ 9:30AM
Gail said...I moved to Texas and was shocked at the school menu. They say professionals are making the menu, but I wonder where they got a degree that says carbs should dominate the meal. Main course was Frito Pie, complete with soy meat and fake cheese whiz, and tons of salt. Most of the meat was soy based. Soy burger, fries, corn, cookies all on one plate - all carbs. Kids dumped their whole lunch so they could buy power drinks and ice cream. When looking at the crowd a good thirty percent were obese.
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8-29-2010 @ 9:38AM
Angiebaby said...In the first place, our schools shouldn't be feeding kids breakfast. In the second place, it is not the school lunches making kids fat. School lunches consist of a balanced meal with controlled portions. This comes out to 5 meals a week with single-serving portions of an entree, a veggie, a sweet and milk. Even if the kids did by some miracle eat all of their school lunch every day the meals cannot be blamed, in part or parcel, for kids being fat.
As for the importance of breakfast? This is true. However, Breakfast alone cannot be considered a piece of the obesity puzzle. Balanced meals, portion control and eating for the occasion make all the difference. Eating for the occasion? WTF? Before school, protein will carry your kids farther and keep them alert during the school morning, where as "bad" carbs and sugars make them sluggish and sleepy, which never bodes well before a test. But on vacation? I believe it is every person's right to have donuts or brownies or left over pizza for breakfast a few mornings in their lifetime.
I once saw somebody on tv once explaining the way their society takes their meals. They eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. (It was a male dominated society). We are just the opposite. We consume our heaviest, most calorie-laden meals at night and then sit sedentary, we think dessert is mandatory on a daily basis instead of an occasional treat and oh, hell no, fruit is NOT a desert , and our main source of protein comes from large portions of solid meat late in the day. No wonder we are unhealthy. But contrary to popular government propaganda, obesity is NOT a national epidemic afflicting our society. MOST of the adults and children in our country are NOT fat, and certainly the number of truly obese children and adults is far lower than our mainstream media reflects. But if we can't find something wrong with the people the government can interfere in, there is no federal money to be made, is there?
How can anybody with any sense look at the 5 small meals our kids eat at school and say that is the cause of anything? Besides, how accurate can a study be that includes only kids on the federal lunch program and it's harmful effects when all the kids in that same school eat the exact same lunch? Seriously. If I'm in the 3rd Grade, fat and eat free lunches, and the kid sitting next to me is in the 3rd Grade, NOT fat and eating the same lunch as I am, then that makes the results of this "research" actually show that federal school lunches ARE NOT related to a child's overall health and specifically, a kid being fat.
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8-29-2010 @ 9:56AM
Gail said...I totally agree with you. However, if they are going to teach the recently redesigned food pyramid in school, and then serve a carb based, salty,heavy meal, is it any wonder that the kids don't know how to eat properly? I would be embarrassed to say I was the professional who planned the meal.
8-29-2010 @ 9:47AM
worried mother said...School lunches causing kids to gain weight! BULL!!! the food is nasty 80% of it is throwed out its always dried out or noty finished in cooking. And what 2 celery some peanut butter a sandwhich and fruit and milk is not going to cause that much of a weight gain my kids come home starved!!! Satlite lunches are a big joke!!!
We use to have real tray lunches and you dont see any difference in weight gain then either!!!
And a kid isnt dumb the price for a satlite luch is out ragious!!
You can get a good meal for that price cooking at home
Sounds like the government now wants control of our live!! To starve kids to death who get nothing now!!!
HUH sounds like HILTER NUMBER 2 HAS HIT AGAIN WATCH AMERICANS OUR GOVERNMENTS WILL KILL US ALL SLOWLY MUST NEED THERE POCKETS FULLER THEN THEY CAN HOLD NOW HOPE THEY CAN SPEND THERE GREED WHERE THERE ALL GOING!!!!!!!
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8-29-2010 @ 9:51AM
shasha43 said...lee
You are as stupid as they come sasha is not fat first of all. It,s not the school thats making your child fat it,s the garbage that child eats at home. I work at a school and i see a lot of kids bringing their own lunch nothing but junk food. and that goes for all races.there are a lot of kids made to make their own lunches.so people need to stop blaming the schools it starts at home. meanstr you are just dumb go find a basement to sit in
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