Frequently Asked Questions
By Althea Zanecosky, MS, RD, LDN
Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association
October 2007
Q: Which is better for my child: a school lunch or a packed lunch from home?
A: With more pre-packaged lunch options available, parents may wonder whether a more nutritious choice is found at the grocery store or in the school cafeteria. There are good reasons to tote a lunchbox - and lunch money - to school.
One advantage of bringing a lunch from home is the opportunity for customization, with you deciding what foods your child will eat. Regardless of what you pack, be sure to include “milk money” so your child can buy an ice-cold milk, which will provide nine essential vitamins and minerals.
There are several good reasons for buying lunch. With child obesity levels rising, federal mandates now require local school boards to adopt a wellness policy that includes nutrition guidelines for food and beverages sold or served to children. In the school lunches versus brown bag lunch debate, nutrition, cost, safety and convenience currently favor the food served in schools while, increasingly, brown bagging might provide the only access to soda pop, candy, gum and other junk foods.
Under the National School Lunch Act, the federal government provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to more than 27 million children each day. The federal assistance program uses the abundance of American agriculture to promote the nutrition and health of our nation's school children. In exchange for receiving federal funding and food, public and nonprofit private school cafeterias must meet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
These guidelines specify no more than 30 percent of an individual's calories may come from fat and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. The regulations also mandate that a school lunch provides one-third of the Recommended Dietary Allowance of protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium and calories. Kids get one-third of their RDA of these nutrients in one school meal, while research has shown that many home packed lunches lack these nutrients. In one study, school lunches offered more variety, twice as much fruit and seven times the vegetables than home-packed lunches. Meanwhile, brown bag lunches contained three times more snack foods, such as cookies, chips and packaged snacks.
The federal government leaves the choice of specific menus to local foodservice directors because they interact with students and can more easily identify student likes and dislikes. Many schools offer several options each day so children can choose what to eat in the cafeteria. Only students who eat free or reduced-price lunches must accept certain items on the serving line. Exposure to different types of food increases the likelihood that a child will eventually eat that food.
Set a weekly date with your child to review the school’s menu to decide when to pack a lunch and when to buy one. When it comes time to pack lunch, let you child help decide what items go into the lunchbox and try to follow the USDA Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid as a base for good nutrition.
For more information on healthy school lunches see:
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/AboutLunch/NSLPFactSheet.pdf
Rainville, A.J. 2001. “Nutritional Quality of Reimbursable School Lunches Compared to Lunches Brought from Home in Elementary Schools in Two Southeastern Michigan Districts,” Journal of Child Nutrition & Management 25(1):13-18.