Why You Should Have Healthy School Meals

Because a large number of children eat breakfast, lunch or both at school, it is important that these meals be healthy. Schools that participate in the federally funded school breakfast and lunch programs have to provide meals that meet certain nutrition goals -- so they are therefore more likely to be healthy than the meals at schools not participating in these programs.

School Meal Requirements

Federally funded school meals must provide one-third of the recommended dietary allowances for calories, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, protein and iron, and contain less than 30 percent of calories from fat and less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat. These meals need to offer at least two fruit and vegetable options as well. However, many schools still provide meals that are too high in cholesterol, fat and saturated fat, and that don't have enough fruit and vegetable options to provide sufficient fiber, according to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, whose recommendations for school meals are stricter than those of the USDA.

Food Insecurity

School meals are offered either free or at reduced rates to children who come from families with low incomes. This helps provide food-insecure children with the nutrition they need to stay healthy and grow, providing them with more than 55 percent of their daily calories, according to Project Bread.

Obesity

Schools are working to make their meals even healthier to try to keep kids from becoming obese. Many schools are baking foods instead of frying them, serving more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, adding vegetarian options and lowering the amount of sugar and salt added to foods prepared for school meals. They are increasing the amount of foods prepared from scratch and from locally grown fare, and in some cases starting school gardens to encourage kids to eat more vegetables.

School Performance

Eating a healthy school meal rather than one filled with high-calorie, high-fat processed foods can make a difference in performance, according to a study done by the Institute for Social and Economic Research comparing performance before and after chef Jamie Oliver's Feed Me Better campaign. Schools that participated saw an increase in English and science scores and a decrease in absences due to illness.