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Research Says Noem Wrong on School Lunches, Kids Eating Well

One of Rep. Kristi Noem’s favorite hobbyhorses has been the school lunch program. Our Congresswoman has been waging war for years on rules that she says leave kids hungry.

Predictably, her anecdotes falter before real scientific research. Dr. Steven Czinn, chair of the department of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, says conservatives like Noem and food company lobbyists are pushing to undo school lunch standards that are reducing food waste and delivering healthier meals:

There is strong evidence that this effort is succeeding. A 2014 survey of school leaders found that most were receiving high marks from students about the healthier meals. In a study published last year, researchers at Yale, Berkeley and the University of Connecticut found that at schools serving the new fare, students ate more fruit and vegetables and threw away less.

The subjects, a group of nearly 700 students in a low-income, urban school district, “responded positively to the new lunches,” the researchers concluded. “Overall, the revised meal standards and policies appear to have significantly lowered plate waste in school cafeterias.”

In January, a much larger national study provided more support. For this project, the largest and most complete look at the new standards yet, scientists at the University of Washington School of Public Health looked at more than 1.7 million meals eaten by 7,200 students in a diverse urban school district. The researchers compared students’ eating habits before and after the new rules took effect. After the change, kids chose food that was lower in calories and more nutritious. Just as important, there was almost no difference in how many students participated in the school lunch program: Before the standards kicked in, 47 percent of students ate school lunches; after, the rate was 46 percent. That comes down to a loss of about seven students, hardly a stampede toward the cafeteria exits [Dr. Steven Czinn, “New School Lunch Standards Are Working. So Why Does Congress Want to Knock Them Down?”Washington Post, 2016.03.08].

I could offer my anecdote about the heaping, healthy meals I see on the kids’ plates at school here in Aberdeen (they get chicken nuggets, and they can go for seconds!). But I’ll settle for science: contrary to Noem’s corporate-backed noise, the new school lunch standards are giving kids healthier meals.

 

23 Comments

  1. Mark Winegar 2016-03-10 07:26

    I frequently dine with students in the Vermillion and Elk Point-Jefferson school districts and they seem to enjoy the meals served. Ample fruits and vegetables are available and very few students bring their own lunch from home. The school lunch program seems to be working well here.

  2. Joan Wollschlager 2016-03-10 09:08

    No, sorry Kristi Noem, but you are off base on this one. Stop criticizing our school’s lunch staff! They plan very good meals for the MONEY they are given! You fall short on the funding end! We could use and offer more fresh fruits and fresh vegetables but funding only goes so far!
    Whole wheat products are on the menu and sugar and salt are off. Kids get good sized portions and seconds are offered most of the time. Less junk food is on the menu now with meal plans having to meet healthier guidelines. Milk is not limited in our school.
    If kids go away hungry I would blame over eating or parents not teaching and providing healthy food back home. Kids will think junk food is tastier until their bodies get accustomed to a healthy choice.
    Obesity was growing in children and now has slowed. It would diminish if healthier diets were followed outside of school!

  3. Loren 2016-03-10 09:50

    And the last time Noem was RIGHT was…?? Anyone? Anyone? Butler? Anyone?

  4. Stumcfar 2016-03-10 09:56

    It would be fun to do a poll in your state and see who is right. I can tell you that the most common school complaint around my area is that kids need to purchase 2 or 3 meals to get enough to eat. It is funny how kids get one meal a day at schools, but for some reason the schools get the blame for kids being fat, so they now, thanks to Michelle Obama, have to be the dieticians for the country.

  5. mike from iowa 2016-03-10 10:08

    Stumpy-your state? Are you no longer claiming residency in S Dakota? You must be an RVer.

  6. Roger Cornelius 2016-03-10 12:26

    Stu, spoken like a true redneck (it’s all Michelle Obama’s fault).
    Where do you live, Kentucky, Alabama?

  7. Jenny 2016-03-10 13:10

    I’ll pull a GOP play card; public schools are not telling these kids they have to eat their lunches.
    Mommy can fix and nice hot lunch for them and then everything will be okay!

  8. jerry 2016-03-10 14:38

    Stumpy lives in the shadows of his mind. Not Bunkerville like his idol, but Trollville. It is just down the road from reality. There the school children subsist on steak and lobster and have no place for grazing foods. You know veggies are for livestock and not for anything else. Vitamin D is so yesterday. It may be that Stumpy’s school of thought is a parochial school that has its hand out for more government goodies after all, privilege privilege privilege.

  9. Stumcfar 2016-03-10 15:56

    Don’t begin to try tell me how school lunch programs work, who is behind the changes and etc. I have been on the local public school board for 14 years. I have never claimed to be from SD, but have been considering a move to your great state. I want my vote for President to count once in my lifetime. You are right Jenny. School lunches should only be for the free and reduced. Let those that have to pay for their kids meal pay for everyone else also. The liberal way.

  10. Madman 2016-03-10 16:17

    @stuart

    I think Roseau would miss you too much if you left. Please enlighten me of what you have done there as a member of the board since 2002 to help rectify this situation.

  11. Jenny 2016-03-10 16:20

    And I bet you are pro-life also, Stump?

  12. jerry 2016-03-10 16:31

    Please Stumpy, for the sake of us all, stay where you are at. They love and need you there. This place is full of Indians and Cowboys and stuff, tens of thousands of liberals. Rattlesnakes and mountain lion the size of Hummers. No place for old men that is for sure. Now, back to our regular scheduled programs.

  13. Stumcfar 2016-03-10 16:41

    You can’t rectify unfunded mandates. You try keep lunch prices down, you add alternative lunches to try fill up the students. With states funding their health and human services budget like there is no tomorrow and skimping on Education funding, which is one thing they are required to fund, it makes it really difficult. We have considered opting out of the federal school lunch program, but that would mean losing federal funding.

  14. jerry 2016-03-10 17:02

    What alternative lunches do you offer to “fill up the students”?

  15. mike from iowa 2016-03-10 17:48

    Kids going hungry in schools might take up petty theft or strongarm robberies to fill their bellies during recess. It could happen!

  16. Donald Pay 2016-03-10 18:02

    This points up a far bigger problem. We subsidize the worst foods, making them appear “cheap” so we can feed this junk food to kids in the conservative’s wet dream of a school lunch: pink slime and
    Twinkies. We do this in all sorts of ways, including, I think, directing money into the pocket of Congressperson Noem.

    Probably the worst “food” we subsidize is corn, which subsidizes corn fed beef and beef byproducts, and the worst industrial food products made from chemicals derived from corn. Corn is also an environmental disaster in its current form, and genetic engineering isn’t making it any better.

    I’d rather subsidize good food with nutrition.

  17. Jenny 2016-03-10 18:56

    Why are conservatives so wrathful towards poor children and their parents? I agree there are a small percentage of parents that work they system, but, hey Stub- fight the real enemy! The subsidized oil and gas companies get billions. Wealthy farmers that don’t need farm welfare get it. You need to look beyond the easy target of a poor mom and some kids. A lot of humans are corrupted, but the corrupted ones with money and power are the worst.
    Stump, you still didn’t answer my question if you’re pro-life.

  18. mike from iowa 2016-03-10 19:20

    Like to amend my comment @17:48. Kids that miss meals are probably too weak for strongarm robberies,so they probably do armed robberies.

  19. Loren 2016-03-10 19:59

    Wasn’t catsup a (tomato) vegetable under St Ronald R.? My, how we have digressed from the “good ol’ days”!

  20. Madman 2016-03-10 22:13

    Pickle relish was mentioned as a vegetable but not ketchup specifically.

  21. Robert Kolbe 2016-03-10 22:30

    Ms Noem
    Show up and eat lunch in 10
    Schools. The open your mouth
    There is nothing wrong with personally doing some field work.

Comments are closed.