So, a 150 pound senior whose extracurricular activity is drama club is "allowed" the same amount of lunch calories as a 275 pound senior linebacker on the footbal team. Yep, that makes perfect sense to me...

The 750-850 calories per person in the high school is a good idea; that is, if the food is of good enough quality and us kids are wiling to eat it. Which usually isn't the case.

I love fruit, but quality fruit. It's hard to find a banana that is ripe, and apples that aren't bruised. It may be government required to supply this food, I understand that, but the food supplied isn't prepared the best.

Here's the norm for school fries:
http://i.imgur.com/BzAXO2n.jpg

Bex - I'm curious here. It's ok for the government to fund a kid who wants to play offensive line. But if that kid wants an iPad to further his studies, that's not a good expenditure? I'm sure if you added up some of those boys' extra meals and how much they'd LIKE to eat, you could by them ALL new text books. I'm not criticizing, just curious. And those fries look terrible, by the way. Thanks 'Student'

Here's my problem as a student at STMA. A student who excercises regularly, plays sports all year round, and is also expected to spend a minimum of two-four hours of study is given a meal that is less than a 1000 calories when a healthy and normal diet is at least 1200-1500 calories minimum. This doesn't take into account the abundance of wasted food that isn't eaten because it's unappetizing, improperly prepared, etc. As a student body we are given food that is cold or barely warm, and when we are given the "starchy" foods that have been addressed they are limp, soggy, tasteless sweet potato fries, tots, and so on; but when we are given white potatoes, it's in large two-scoop mashed potato form which ends up wasted becaus nobody wants to eat nothing but mashed potatoes and the French fries are greasy and over cooked to the point of being limp. Therefore in the end whether the meals are "healthier" the student body ends up being underfed and malnourished which then ends up harming their studies and sports ability. Lastly to put this in perspective in the amount of calories we are fed; in the bags of packaged food given to starving children in foreign nations there is relatively 2000 calories in just the rice, soy, and vegetable mix yet the student body of STMA, a highly active school, is not given even a thousand. So as a community lets look at what our students are doing and then assess what the proper calorie intake should be.

Samara Postuma: I'm not saying nor am I comparing what hunger we feel to starving children, I was simply saying that to try and put it into perspective; like I had stated before I put that fact. And yes I am aware that it's an option to pack our own lunches but I do also want to state that that isn't neccessarily an option for all students in our community. I also want to state that I'm not trying to be insensitive, infact I have worked closely with these foundations that help these children and those food bags that I refered to, to my knowledge, which was learned while packing that food, feeds one child for around a month, and I am aware that this amount may vary. Also to address the snack for after school; I'm not saying that isn't an option as well, I was simply stating that it wasn't enough if all you had to eat was school lunch and didn't have excess food other than what was provided. I appreciate your feedback very much thank you.

If students should be eating 2,000 calories a day, an 800-calorie lunch is perfectly sufficient for the school to provide-there is breakfast, dinner and snacks to account for, after all. I'm with Samara-teens have the ability to pack their own lunch or snacks if they dislike their school lunch option...or they could go through appropriate channels to respectfully voice their opinion. It's time for some personal responsibility in lieu of whining about unappetizing fries!

I feel the senior articulated himself quite well...I don't think he or she were trying to be insensitive by comparing the different foods..I do know 1st hand that every teenager I have come in contact with in 10 years in this district describe and complain about the quality and preparation of the food that is offered pretty much verbatim . I also know they operate on new strict guide lines and portion control..I believe the bigger picture would be to come together and find better options that the students would gravitate too ..? Other districts have one it ... Maybe even a great senior project ? Signed a mom who has been packing lunches for years because her kids won't eat school lunch.....

Mike: I'm curious as to what was discussed at tonight's meeting. Will you be publishing a summary of tonight's meeting as an update to the current story?

When I was in High School back in the early 90's, our school allowed its students to leave the campus for lunch. Is that an option here in STMA?

Granted, that its probably not a healthy option as, if I were still a student, my friends and I would probably drive to Culvers, McD, or BK as opposed to visiting the salad bar at Coburn's.

High school teens are more intelligent today than I believe we ever were. They have more awareness and access to information to help them make the best choices. They know the choices they make and consequences of them. If not, these years are perfect for learning these lessons before they face the real responsibilities of life while away at college, military, and early adult life.

I say, give them the information to succeed and let them make their own choices. Good or bad, life is a learning process!

Hey Mike. Not sure how to respond as I don't understand your comment. I was only trying to make a comparison between a relatively non-taxing activity and one that uses substantially more energy and yet those students are given the same option for lunch, unless of course they are willing to pay more. You're talking iPads and text books. I don't follow.

talking with my kids gives me 2 thoughts.

it'd be great if the quality of the food (produce/vegetables) could be raised. we get there are cost concerns, but my kids love fruit but complain that the fruit at school isn't that great. we want kids to eat healthy, so lets give them quality food that's healthy. right?

also, many districts offer breakfast. it'd be so great if our students and kids could get breakfast at school. even something simple like a granola bar, a piece of fruit, and some cereal or something with juice. nothing hot, just a quick and nutritious breakfast. but again, there's a cost to that that i doubt the district will even consider.

School lunches today are shameful compared to the school lunches from the 1960"s, parents of that era would not have accepted any of the lunches provided these days. Seems the students are paying the biggest price for the taxes paid to the school district. Looking at the school menu I would not eat one of the meals myself.

my kids stopped eating hot lunch at the beginning of this year because of the poor quality of the food, taste, and they are loaded with GMO's. School lunches have less nutritional value than ever. If you want to make sure your kids are eating healthy nutritional GMO free organic foods, the only way is to send them with a lunch from home. Look at all the information available on the internet and do your homework. Do not allow your children to eat poison that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

I attended the meeting and essentially was the one who raised this issue, namely because of Koch's visit the year prior and comments made by STMA West student council about the amount of food, especially the sweet potatoe fries, going in the trash. I did speak at this meeting and my concern as taxpayers is the amount of food going in the garbage. I was very satisfyed with Dolores' presentation. She has a job that I am not envious at all of. I only wish that everyone here had attended the meetings I had and then I believe people would understand exactly how out of control this issue is. Every school district in the country MUST abide by Dept. of Agricultures (who run the federal school lunch program) guidelines. Schools districts DO HAVE the option of not participating in the federal program. The crux of the problem is this; there is federal and state oversight/mandates that must be adhered to. Aside from selecting what's on the menu, which is dictated by the D of Ag, school districts hands are tied. They also have a budget to work with. Next is the obesity issue. I LOVE the comments in here about personal responsibility. This is exactly the issue. Kids don't like the food and are smuggling snacks into the school. Lifestyle is also an issue. The mentality is "teach kids to eat healthy" but in reality, if the kid goes hungry, they binge before/after school. Lack of exercise, video games, all of this plays a part. Simply put the Feds should butt out and leave.......

.....continued: the program up to the states. This folks (and please understand, I'm not trying to be dictatorial here) is why Federalism is so important. The more the federal gvmt and state gvmt entrenches itself in our lives, the less power we as a people and community have to make decisions. It is absolutely ludicrous that we as a state send "X" amount of dollars to DC and get "Y" back, and in reality, we consistently send MORE than we receive.
Hopefully this turns into an excellent lesson for the school kids and they'll realize that the school lunch program is only a very small part of the problem of intrusiveness at the hand of over-zealous DC politicians and bureaucrats.

Personally, I think it comes down to price. As prices of school lunches increase every year, portions go down. I understand the stress for curing childhood obesity, but not feeding kids a healthy lunch is only making them turn to packaged food which defeats the purpose in the frist place. I'm 25 years old and I remember when lunches had homemade bread from scratch! Yes, peaches and pears came out of a can, and some steamed veggie had the appeal of cheese on top, but the main portion of lunch, the entree, was always filling, homemade and tasted good. Yes, there was salt and fat, but I wasn't eating other goodies during the day, I didn't come home starving. There was enough. I look at the picture attached to the comment above and I shake my head in disgust.
As far as comments about packing your own lunch, a practice that use to be expensive, is now probably equal to buying a lunch since the prices of a school issued lunch have increased so dramatically! By packing your own lunch you put more stress onto the parents trying to stretch a grocery bill budget further and find time to continually restock your home pantry. The idea of a school lunch is to be easy and good - good meaning both good for you and tasting. The problem with today is that one of more of those elements falls by the way side and no one wins.

Here is a link to the Dept. of Ag's school lunch guidelines. Some may take particular interest in the last sentence of Item 3: While school lunches must meet Federal meal requirements, decisions about what specific foods to serve and how they are prepared are made by local school food authorities.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/aboutlunch/NSLPFactSheet.pdf
Birdie and others may like the subsidy portion, as that outlines most of the adherent costs associated with the lunch program. The lunch program is heavily subsidized by the D of Ag, i.e. federal tax dollars.

My children come home from the middle school and high school telling me how milk is not cold or tastes spoiled. They also find hair in their foods. I pay taxes to employee people to prepare foods we need more quality for what we are paying for our children to eat. I am disappointed at how the quality of the lunch meals has declined.

Im a student at stma and I have been eating the same school lunches for eight years now-meaning thats the stuff we got used to. I dont think you can just change everything to whole grains and change alot of the stuff we did like, like the fries and expect us to automaticly eat it and enjoy it, espeialy when all the food that got changed is 10 times more discusting.

Again, all the fruit is always bruised and there isnt enough choices for sides. you either have to take the one thing or your starving the rest of the day because the main meal isnt large enough. So, because of this, people are always getting seconds and stuff from the alecarte-which is way to expensive.

I am ALWAYS hungry when I get home because there was barely anything to eat at school. So I eat snacks to fulfill that 3 hour hunger im having, but then im not hungry for dinner a half-hour later.