Regulating School Lunches: A Case Study

The issue of governmental involvement in regulating school lunches is divided between opponents and supporters. The argument against the government’s involvement in promoting healthier lunches is largely due to the potential significant increase in cost of funding the programs and the assumption that changing the menu in favor of healthier foods will lead to more wasted food. However, because malnutrition is a major issue affecting many people in poverty and it can have devastating effects on an individual’s development, the government should regulate all food served by school cafeterias in favor of nutritious and healthy meals. While providing nutritional food may cost more, it will provide students from impoverish families guaranteed free, nutritious meal five days out of the week as well as aid the students to form a set of guidelines that can help them prevent obesity in the future.

Making meals more nutritious by providing fresh fruits and vegetables rather than canned goods will drive up the prices of school lunches (Newman, 2013) which will put unneeded strain on low income families in addition to decreasing the number of participants ordering school lunches. Each year, the price of school lunches has shown a …show more content…
For example, some schools have successfully lowered costs of school lunches through indirect methods such as decreasing competition by replacing food in vending machines with healthy alternative or using proceeds from an a la carte salad bar to create extra revenue to cover the cost of rising lunch prices. Both of these options are effective and promote healthier eating habits. Alternatively, some schools have resorted to changing the cafeteria staff from full-time to part-time workers to save on labor costs (Raiston et al., 2008). Although some of these sacrifices are steep, they must be made in order to cut the rising cost of school