The national school lunch program was designed to help students from low socioeconomic families get adequate

nutrition while in school. The program is the second largest food and nutrition assistance program in the US. It serves over millions of children every day. Ninety-four percent of public and private school choose to participate in the school lunch program. The program could offer reduced or free lunch to these students. Participation of the program is very important to keep it going. Some families either dont know or want to be stigmatized, so they dont apply for the school lunch program. The program has it advantages and disadvantages. There were a lot of studies done on the advantages and disadvantages of the school lunch program on participating children. Some benefits of the health, nutritional status, and behaviors of the children were absorbed from these studies. I have found out that the school lunch program had effect on diet, academic performance, school attendance, and health improvement on children who participate in the program. School aged children consume less than the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables. Among those, children from low socioeconomic are more likely to consume the lowest amount of fruits and vegetables. School lunch provides fruits and vegetables to students who participate. Robinson-OBrien (2010) reported that students from low socioeconomic and diverse consume most of their fruits and vegetables servings from school lunch. It is believed that the school lunch program is particularly beneficial to those who consume less than five servings of fruits and vegetables. The school lunch program provides some servings of fruits and vegetables. Students who come from homes with less availability of fruits and vegetables are more likely impacted by the fruits and vegetables in school lunches. About half of National School Lunch program

participants eat at least one serving of vegetables at school as oppose to twenty-three percent of non-participants (1). Students who eat non-National School Lunch program meals eaten at school are more likely to be low in most vitamins and minerals. Participation of the national school lunch program leads to higher intake of vitamins and minerals. Students who participates the school lunch program eat less carbohydrates than those who dont participate. Participants and non-participants of the school lunch program consumed the same amount of protein and food energy when compared (2). However, participants consumed more fat, sodium and cholesterol than non-participants. High percentage of food energy was from fat and saturated fat in the national school lunch program participants. National school lunch program participants in general consumed more calcium than non participants. Low vitamin C level was associated with national school lunch program participation. Higher intake of vitamin B-6 was also associated with the school lunch program participants (2). School lunch program contributes to decrease intake of added sugar in children. This decrease intake of added sugar could be due to non participant being able to buy sugar added soft drinks. There is no maximum amount of added sugar consumption in the DRI but it limitations is recommended. Added sugar is believed to contribute to the obesity epidemic in the U.S. Most of the students who participate in the national school lunch program were from lower socioeconomic family, so they are less likely to buy food from the vending machine or eat out at fast food chains in school. Non-participants of the school lunch program were more likely to consume more soft drinks and fruit juice than participants (3). The consumption of fruit juice and soft drink contributed to the increased

in added sugar intake of non participants. Milk was offer in the school lunch program in opposed to fruit juice or soft drinks. The offering of milk provided more calcium and less added sugar as opposed to fruit juice and soft drinks. Higher attendances in school were observed in participants of the school lunch program than non participants. School lunch program improves the nutritional status of students who participates in it. Weight is believed to some influence on childrens attendance in school. Both underweight and overweight has negative effect on school attendance. Since school lunch program decreases the intake of added sugar in participants, it helps lower the risk of obesity in these children. This decreased risk of obesity lower the number of sick days for these children; which in turn improves their attendance to school. Pan and et states that poor nutrition in children has negative effect on school attendance. Promoting healthy eating habits is important in decreasing school absents. School lunch program promotes healthy eating habits to school age children (4). School lunch program has non direct effect on academic performances. Weight has direct correlation with academic performances. It was found that nutritional intake had a positive effect on childrens academic performance. Children who had good attendance performed better in academic than those that didnt have good attendance. Students are able to focus more when they get enough food to eat. School lunch program provides food to low- socioeconomic student who other wise might not have food availability. School lunch program offers foods that have some nutrients to children. Children who eat some food before test are believed to perform better than those who are hungry. Food insecurity could also play a main role on the childrens life (5). Participation of the school lunch program does have slight negative effect on academic

performances. Most likely participants of the school lunch program are from low-income household. Children who consumed nutritionally balance meals were found to perform better on standardized testing then those who didnt. Florence, Asbridge, and Veugelers (2008) reported that children with less overall high quality diet performed poorly on school academics. Students well being has direct effect on their performance on test and school work. Since students get one third of meals at school, the school lunch program provides nutritional foods. Low income families are more likely to offer less nutritionist foods to their children than other families (7). This is due to healthy foods being expensive and unaffordable. School lunch program provides the only healthy meal to students from low socioeconomic. So therefore the school lunch program has effect on student performance on school work. There is health issues associated with obesity. Consumption of added sugar increases the risk for obesity. This increase in risk for obesity also increases the risk for diabetes. The occurrence of diabetes in younger children has increased. Since the school lunch program has competitors, such as vending machine, fast foods near by, etc, it needs to offer less nutritional items to make some money(8). School could help or worsen the obesity occurrence in students by offering nutritional foods and let the kids decide or by offering what children would more likely to eat. The current school lunch program offer less nutritional foods which contributes to obesity risk factors. The addition of meat and grain to school lunches helps lower the risk for obesity. School lunches have milk, fruits and vegetables included in the meal which helps lower obesity in school aged children.

The national school lunch program has some barriers to offering more nutritional dense foods to children. Competitive foods offered in the school cafeterias are a barrier to improving the school lunch program. Since competitive foods costs money, children will try to avoid the stigma that only low-income participate in the school lunch program. The competitive foods offered could discourage participants of the school lunch program (9). Even though, the nutritional component of the school lunch has been improved, the participations of the program have remained lowed. Instead of the program being viewed as a nutritional program for all children, it is viewed as a program for children who cant afford to buy from competitive alternatives. Another barrier to improving the school lunch program is the administrator put bad stigma on qualifying for the program. If the program administrators have bad thoughts on participants, the students would not want to be part of the program. This keeps children that would benefit from the program from taking advantage of it. People believe the program is helping less fortunate and its a bad thing. Children dont want to be labeled as less fortunate then their peers. Especially older children are more likely to avoid eating lunch from the reduced or free lunch program (9). The school lunch program has both benefits and disadvantages. The school lunch program offers healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grain, meats and milk to participants. Foods offered on the program have high saturated fats and fats in general than foods brought from home. The program helps children who participated to consume less added sugar beverages. The school lunch program offered less nutritional foods which contributed to the rise of obesity. However, obesity was seen equally on participant and non- participants of the program. Children were more likely to not

participate in the program because of stigma that coordinating with participation of it. There are some barriers that prevent students from taking advantage of the benefits offered by the program.

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5. Dunifon, Rachel and Kowaleski-Jones, Lori (2003). The influences of participation in the national
school lunch program and food insecurity on child well-being. Chicago Journals, 77(1), 72-92 http://www.jstor.org accessed: April 25. 2013 6. 7. 8. Florence, M. D., Asbridge, M., & Veugelers, P. J. (2008). Diet quality and academic performance. Journal of School Health, 78(4), 209-215. Stephen J. Caldas & Carl Bankston (1997).Effect of School Population Socioeconomic Status on Individual Academic Achievement, The Journal of Educational Research, 90:5, 269-277 Story, Mary, Kaphingst, Karen M. and French, Simone (2006), The role of schools in Obesity Prevention. The Future of Children, 16(1); 109-142 http://www.jstor.org <Accessed: April 29, 2013 Bhatia, Tajiv, Jones, Paul, and Reicker, Zetta (2011). Competitive foods, discrimination, and participation in the national school lunch program. American Journal of Public Health, 101(8), 1380-1386

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