What’s wrong with school lunches

Cooper, Ann (2007, December). What’s wrong with school lunches.

Ann Cooper discusses the issues with school lunches and believes that it is a social justice issue. She is the Director of Nutrition Services and has re-vamped the school lunch program in many beneficial ways. She states that poor school lunches are causing students to become sick rather than improving their life. Some major steps she took to transform school lunches were to create salad bars in the cafeteria and to encourage children to eat locally and regionally. Cooper informs the audience of the extreme use of antibiotics in the agricultural system, and the lack of nutritional food is actually causing many forms of illness—insulin-dependent diabetes being one of the most rampant forms.

Cooper states that we really need to change the whole pattern of kids and food. There are numerous modifications she has operated, which include using totally fresh food with no-fructose corn syrup. She also started a gardening class and improved the cooking classes offered to the students and schools. The goal is to infuse the food with an educational background and tie everything into the academic curriculum. They serve the foods that the students have grown in the gardens. She partners with many private companies who are willing to work on changing the school food systems. Her emphasis is to educate the students and improve their way of life. We cannot just educate students’ minds, we need to take a holistic approach and teach our children as a whole-healthy individual.