How can schools provide healthy lunches at a budgetable price?

"For children, the National School Lunch Program provides a nutritious meal that contains 1/3 of the Recommended Dietary Allowance of necessary nutrients. For parents, the program offers a convenient method of providing a nutritionally balanced lunch at the lowest possible price. For schools, the program enhances children's learning abilities by contributing to their physical and mental well being. Studies have shown that children whose nutritional needs are met have fewer attendance and discipline problems and are more attentive in class." Students can afford to pay for the healthy lunches at school because of this program. So there's no excuse for the school to provide any junk food to the students.

                                

 http://educateiowa.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=369

Conclusion

To sum it up, school lunch is very convenient because parents are busy and don't have time to make lunch for children. However, it is not good for kids because school lunch are mostly made of frozen or fast foods. Children depend on lunch to eat and if it doesn't contain nutrition it would cause in the long term to have health problems. I think children are growing, so they need a nutritios lunch like beef, milk,vegetables and fruits. I believe school lunch needs improvement because lunch is vital for children because it provides them their daily energy and growth. Some people in China always said "If the young is strong, the country will be  strong; If the young is knowledgeable, the country will be prosperous." This represents that if children grow up strong and healthy they have the energy require to study, which then they can gain knowledge to help their country prosper. 

     

Health

School lunches is usually unhealthy in America because a lot of school serve students fast food for lunch. "Deep-fried popcorn chicken, tiny taters, bread, barbecue sauce, ketchup, milk. That high-fat, high-sodium, low-fiber menu is a typical lunch at a typical American elementary school." It can cause a lot of problems to the children such as obesity, heart diseases. Michelle Obama tried to solve the problems, I've read some articles about Michelle Obama's lunch plan and it was not popular and a lot of students and parents didn't like the plan. "Parents are saying that kids are coming home hungrier than before, and teachers are claiming that kids are hungry an hour after their lunch break, making them sleepy and unfocused." Provide healthy school lunches is very important to the students. "When choosing what to eat for lunch, making a healthy choice is really important. Here's why: Eating a variety of healthy foods gives you energy to do stuff, helps you grow the way you should, and can even keep you from getting sick." It is not just the school responsibility for the children's health, and it is also the parents and the children's own responsibity for eating health food. Parents and children should have a health diet. There are some students that choose to eat the unhealth food even the school can provide them some health school lunches such as vegetables and fruits. When I was in high school there's a lot of students don't like to eat vegetables, even the school provided vegetables. They just left the vegetables on the plate after they finished up the meat. So we should follow the MyPyramid chart and have a healthy diet.

http://kidshealth.org/kid/grow/school_stuff/school_lunches.html
http://www.parents.com/recipes/familyrecipes/quickandeasy/problem-with-your-childs-school-lunch/
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/250732.php

What should we eat in order to have a healthy diet?

We should follow the MyPyramid chart to have a healthy diet, and also do enough exercise every day. "Nutrition is the basis of long-term health and well-being and is vital for early child development- neurological and physical growth." We should eat more grains, vegetables, fruits and eat less meat, beans, milk, oil, sweets to remain a healthy diet. We eat too much meat, oil and sweets in our daily life. That make us absorbs too much sugars, fat and calories, it would make us overweight.

http://bloomingchilddevelopment.wordpress.com/nutrition/

What are the efftects of children eating unhealthy school lunches?

It causes obesity, lack of nutrients, increase in diseases. Children who are overweight and obese due to a high-fat diet are at an increased risk of developing other health conditions, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and high cholesterol. Only fresh food can provide enough energy for kids and stop the feeling of hunger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IB7NDUSBOo  

Questions & Answers

Compare School Lunches To Other Countries

As we all know, most of school lunches in America is fast food,like hamburgers,french fries,chicken and steaks. Many kids depend on school to provide nutritious food for them, but actually they can't get enough nutrition they need from these junk food. Oppositely, the school lunches provided by other countries are better for kids' diet. The following pictures show that people in Asia always eat rice, meats, fishes, vegetables and soups as lunch. Compare  with  the food in America, these school lunches contain more proteins and vitamins instead of oil and fattiness. It is obvious that kids will become more healthy if they refuse fast food and start eating the food with more grains.

Japanese                                                            Chinese                                                     Korean

"The new federal requirements stateside, the first major nutritional school meal overhaul in over 15 years, offer less sodium and trans fats, more whole grains and a broader selection of fruits and vegetables to the 32 million students who take part in the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs. The rules also place a calorie cap on lunches: 650 calories for elementary school lunches, 700 for middle schools and 850 for high schools."American appeal to change the school lunches,to make it more nutritional. Asian food is much better for kids to eat. Like fruits, vegetables, grains are supposed to replace the current food in America. That will be benefit for kids' diet, they can get more energy in lunch time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/09/school-lunches-from-aroun_n_2100142.html