Healthy School Lunches

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has been serving the nation's children for over 60 years. School lunches today follow federal nutrition guidelines and serve more fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low fat dairy than ever before. On a very tight budget, school nutrition professionals are preparing and serving balanced, nutritious meals in age appropriate portion sizes that provide needed nutrients and promote a healthy childhood weight.

School lunches have come a long way. How far? — Take a look at the facts and decide for yourself:

NSLP meals meet federal standards based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans
This means no more than 30 percent of calories come from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. School lunches also provide one-third of the Recommended Daily Allowances of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories. School meals are also balanced and contain all of the food groups to encourage.

School meals are nutritionally superior to bag lunches brought from home
Research by Dr. Alice Jo Rainville of Eastern Michigan University concluded that students who eat school lunches consume fewer calories from fat and that school lunches contain three times as many dairy products, twice as much fruit and seven times the vegetable amounts as lunches brought from home.

No super-sizing
The meals served as part of the NSLP are provided in age-appropriate serving sizes — making schools one of the last places in the U.S. where you can purchase a meal with the recommended serving sizes.

Fruits and vegetable
School lunches make a significant contribution to children achieving "5 A Day" of fruits and vegetables. Many schools offer salad bars, entrée salads, shaker salads and fresh fruit daily.

Over the past few years, school nutrition programs in many states have focused on procuring locally grown food through farm to school programs. The programs connect children with where their food comes from and expose children to a wide variety of healthy and nutritious foods.

Nutritious meals, every day
In 180 school days, 5.2 billion school lunches are served in 99,000 schools - that is approximately 31 million healthy meals per day.

A work in progress
School meals programs are always working to further improve the nutrition, taste and variety of meals. School nutrition professionals are proud partners of First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign and support the Institute of Medicine's recommendations for enhancing federal nutrition standards for school meals.

Additional Resources: