Is your school lunch program healthful or is it contributing to
childhood obesity and related diseases?
Everywhere you turn, you hear about the alarming increase of obesity,
early onset diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic diseases in
children and teens. Yet the USDA, using tax payers’ money, buys surplus
animal products – hundreds of millions of pounds of pork, beef, chicken,
dairy, ad nauseam – from the huge, powerful animal agriculture industry
and dumps these on schools through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP)
and other food assistance programs.
It’s obvious that for politicians, money from lobbyists is far more
important than children’s health. This results in lots of unhealthful
food such as chicken nuggets, hot dogs and other high-cholesterol,
high-fat foods served to those who are most at risk and who will suffer
from preventable diseases into adulthood, placing a burden on the health
system and increasing profits for the pharmaceutical industry. This is
just one example of government hypocrisy.
In a positive approach to helping solve this problem, Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) and other organizations have
been trying to encourage food service directors of schools to offer
healthful options such as fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes.
For more about The Healthy School Lunch Campaign, please visit:
