A Year of School Lunch

Posted: January 15th, 2010 | Author: Jacques de B | Filed under: society | Tags: food, obesity, school food, systems change, youth | 5 Comments » At the time we thought nothing of it, school lunch was supposed to be terrible. Most kids just bought a honey-bun from the vending machine anyways, and maybe some fries. Hardly anyone ever went for the Full Monty unless they were serving the bbq rib sandwich-the mystery meat molded into a vaguely rib-like form was delicious if only because of the tangy sauce that was probably loaded with sugar. Looking back it all seems a little suspect though, why should childhood and adolescence, the time of your life when you need the most nutritious diet, be in fact the opportunity for federally sanctioned malnutrition? A recent article examines evidence that school lunch on average is probably of lower quality than pet food. How has this situation been allowed to continue for so long, and wherefore comes the odd cultural inertia that hews against the implementation of a sane exit strategy? Is there some sort of conspiracy at play here? Is the USDA being run by a cabal of intransigent space lizards with ties to the Illuminati ? The mind reels.

So apropos of the gathering storm around our school lunch cafeterias, and in the great tradition of documentarian Morgan Spurlock and his seminal Super Size Me, an anonymous blogger/school teacher known only as Mrs. Q, has pulled out a machete to sharpen the debate with the appropriately named blog: “Fed Up: School Lunch Project”.  As of the time of posting, she is only 9 days into a year of eating nothing but school lunches, but already her blog is attracting some critical attention.  It’s not hard to see why her tack is so deadly effective-the prospect of voluntarily consuming what our children have no other choice but to-only serves to highlight what we already know: that American school lunch is at large both completely unappetizing and severely lacking in basic nutritional value. Aside from the deadpan and oddly amusing daily commentary of Mrs. Q, the collected imagery of the wilting and oily food offerings crammed unceremoniously onto a small Styrofoam tray are perhaps the greatest testament to just how bad the situation has remained.  Nothing like actually being presented with direct physical evidence. Checkmate Caitlin Flanagan.

So lets hope Mrs. Q survives the year without suffering some serious health repercussions. And furthermore, lets hope her project attracts some much needed attention to one of our most critical public-health issues. If we are going to leave the next generation with an enormous sovereign debt, depleted resource base, rising sea-levels, and the prospect of chronic under-employment, the least we can do is give them a school lunch that’s better than pet food. I mean come on. The Lateral Hippogriff approves !

Fed Up: School Lunch Project

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