Michelle Obama talks up the new school lunches to kids

In a recently released video, the first lady talks up the healthy new choices that kids will see in their school lunches this year

Mon, Sep 10 2012 at 6:51 PM

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Healthy Eating, Obama, USDA, Video, Schools

Photo: Shutterstock

The lunches that students are getting in their public school cafeterias this fall are healthier, at least according to the new USDA National School Lunch Program standards. Those standards, which allow things like the scant amount of tomato sauce to count as a serving of vegetables, might not seem incredibly healthy to many of us, but they are improved slightly.

First lady Michelle Obama is one of the major forces behind what improvements have been made. Today, her Let’s Move campaign posted a video of Mrs. Obama encouraging kids and parents to applaud this year’s improvements in school meals.

I think we should be applauding the improvements the government has made, while encouraging them, no – expecting them, to continue to improve. In the meantime, I’ll let my children buy school lunch the two days a month that they chose (and be thankful those lunches are little healthier than they were last year) and pack their lunch the rest of the time.

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Comments: 7

will Dec 03 2012 at 11:25 AM

boring

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River Lunch Lady Sep 13 2012 at 7:12 AM

I do want to say that school lunch was never meant to sustain an athlete all day, it was meant to sustain the average child. If you child is an athlete you should be supplimenting their meals to begin with. Evryone else should not have to do it for you so step up and take some responsibility for you kid. That being said, as a lunch lady, I beleive that Michelle O is nuts! The amount of hoops that lunch people all over the country have to go thru to produce food that no body wants is ridiculous!

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The menu planning system is unmanagable and almost impossible to create a menu that meet all the requirements. Child obesity was NEVER caused by eating lunch at schools. It was caused by what happens in your homes and outside of school. Super sized portions, soda, and what ever else your kids eat when they leave. All this new law is doing is forcing kids to eat elsewhere or bring lunch from home and if you see what is in some of those bag lunches you would be shocked! REPEAL THIS LAW!!!!!!!!!!

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observer1 Sep 11 2012 at 2:00 AM

Well this article was a complete waste of time. Niether the author, or Mrs. Obama, or the link to the USDA say anything. And please clarify what a "scant amount" of tomatoes, in whatever form it is in, being "allowed" to equal a "serving" of vegetables, and a "serving" has a specific number I think, what do you think is "not incredibly healthy", so much that ýou insist in giving your kids lunch and not eat there? Where are the details?

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Robin Shreeves Sep 11 2012 at 7:13 AM

I missed the link to the information about the pizza sauce. I've corrected it. A serving of vegetables for school lunches is supposed to be 1/2 cup, but an exception has been made and 2 tbsp of tomato paste on a slice of pizza is allowed to be a vegetable.

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observer1 Sep 11 2012 at 9:34 AM

I understand. Actually I tracked down "serving size", ended up at MyPlate, which Mrs. Obama apparently started, and saw that 30% should be veggies. Well while I could consider tomato paste as a veggie, sure doesn't seem to much of it. Pizza is cheap, fast, kids will eat it but make mine spinach!

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Diane Sep 10 2012 at 8:48 PM

The school lunches were horrendous before but are even worse now. I have a teenage boy in high school and the meager, poor quality portions are not filling him up. He's growing extremely rapidly (doc has even noticed stretch marks on his back because of this) and at 5' 11" and 137 pounds, he needs calories, not rations of terrible tasting food..He was dizzy at his athletics practice after school and attributes lack of caloires for the issue. The kids at our local high school are starting to boycott

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by bringing bag lunches. If they're going to implement a program, they need to be realistc and provide food that a human being can actually consume. I'm just waiting for the goverment to start sending in a brown bag l inspector to rummage through the lunches we pack for our kids.