Don’t blame school lunches for poor health | READER COMMENTARY

The recent op-ed in The Baltimore Sun on school lunches (“It’s time the US ensured the safety of school lunches,” March 26) identified some real issues with America’s health and food systems but pointed the finger in the wrong direction. School lunches are not to blame, and this administration is making things worse, not better. The Trump/Musk administration’s first action was to cut farm-to-school funding to schools, which will significantly reduce the amount of food schools can get from their local farmers. Second, the USDA has strict limits for schools on sugars, fats, sodium and whole grains, with minimums on the fruits and vegetables that must be offered having been made increasingly more strict in a multi-year, planned-out manner. And no, ketchup does not count as a vegetable and starchy veg (potatoes, etc.) are limited. Third, a significant number of meals are sent from home — 40% is the national average for public schools, not taking into account many private schools that don’t offer school lunch. Study after study has found the meals served at public schools to be more nutritious than the meals provided from home — more fruits and vegetables and higher in essential nutrients such as protein, calcium, iron, etc. Clearly, problems with childhood obesity are not caused by school lunches. Conversely, school lunches are playing an important role in decreasing childhood obesity.

The growth in childhood obesity has been a major concern of the school lunch programs for at least 25 years. The biggest push in the school lunch programs came with the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act in 2010, which instituted stricter requirements that have been phased in over the past 10 years. Since then, while childhood obesity rates are still inching up, the rate of increase has declined. Another interesting fact is that the rates among school-aged children (ages 6-11) has declined. The obesity rates among young children (ages 2-6, well before there are school lunches to blame) have some of the highest rates of increase. Again, obesity is not being caused by school lunch, and if anything, the availability of a school lunch at the grade school level seems to be helping, not hurting. To make school lunch the target of the op-ed’s ire is just wrong. School lunch programs are run by passionate child nutrition professionals — dieticians and chefs — who, like the author, want the best for our kids.

So let’s get to where we agree: The industrialization of American agriculture and the profit motives that drive the food industry are causing our foods to be less healthy. Industrial farming requires more chemicals and creates more concentrated waste and runoff than family farms. Industrial scale farming focuses on cheap inputs, efficiency and productivity with more pesticides, fertilizers, mono-cultured crops and antibiotics for tightly packed herds/flocks to make it profitable. Big food companies grow sales and earn profits for stockholders by making “craveable” high-volume foods with the lowest-cost ingredients often with “addictive” qualities such as high fructose corn syrup and food dyes. Here’s the rub: Are Americans willing to pay more for “better” food? I personally make that choice by buying as much as I can from farmers’ markets, but it is pretty clear from the hyper-focus on the price of eggs these days that most Americans are not willing to pay more for quality. In fact, let’s use eggs as a timely example. The price impact of avian flu is largely due to the industrialized poultry industry. Millions of birds have to be euthanized every time avian flu is discovered at a factory farm. In Canada (affected by the same migratory birds that spread avian flu), the cost of eggs has not increased rapidly. Why? Because their farms are smaller and more dispersed. Bringing it home, the eggs I buy at the farmers market have always been more expensive than the grocery store, but that price has not gone up in years.

Bottom line: if you want to improve the quality of food in the United States and the health of Americans, do not blame school lunch. Set your sights instead on Industrialized Ag that has perfected cheap food and the food industry that has made us addicted to sugary foods and crazy colors/shapes for profit. Just be clear that any changes that promote smaller farms and reduced sugar/additives (a desirable objective for health and the environment) will come at the cost of much higher food prices. Is this a price we are willing to pay at the grocery store? Are we willing to increase the budgets for school lunch programs to provide higher-quality food? I think the answer can be seen in headlines: sadly, no.

— Lisa Pline, Annapolis