School lunches lead to weight issues, finds study

[Parenting News]

According to this study, children who eat daily in cafeterias are 60% more likely to be overweight than children who bring their lunches from home.

[mom2many]

Maybe if PE was still a priority it wouldn't be a problem. Truth be told, many home sent lunches are barely any better.

[akmom]

I have trouble believing that the calories consumed in that 1/2 hour are responsible for a child's weight problems.

More likely, we are looking at demographics. Families who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches typically take advantage of them, whereas higher-income families are split between hot and cold lunches. Low-income families are also less likely to have quality food at home, so we are probably seeing weight problems that developed at home in students who happen to eat school lunches.

[Mom2all]

I'd say school lunch is not the problem. It would be interesting to see how many children that eat school lunch go outside or play sports. How much time do they spend on gaming systems and such. My 3 blood children ate school lunch. At one time youngest did become rather chubby while his brother and sister had always been slim and healthy looking. I could have blamed the school perhaps.. but more likely is was because for about a year he was terrified of "accidents" because I told him Grandma died of one. That year he became a slug refusing to do anything that might cause an accident. I replaced the DS, TV, X-box with a bike/helmet and base ball glove/bat and with lots of pushing and pulling him outside he slowly lost it all. Its the activity level of our chunky monkeys thats causing our country to get bigger and bigger and BIGGER!

[cybele]

I'm another one who believes activity is probably more to blame.

We don't have school lunches here and there is still a lot of fat children.

[CadensUnc]

Activity is certainly to blame, but school lunches and DIET of course are part of the problem. Get you children addicted to good food at a young age, not the sweet and fat crap they serve at a school lunch.

[jack123]

Its a combination of a lot of things. Firstly parents do not provide children lunch box, and if they do it is barely something healthy. Now if the parents dont give lunch kids will eat from out and the cafeteria food is also not healthy. Plus the lack of PE in school makes them lethargic. So basically I think the parents should provide home cooked food to kids and also indulge them in activities if the kids school doesnt.

[CadensUnc]

A problem for many families is cost. It is simply cheaper to eat out McDonalds and cafeteria food. Whenever I can, I mute the TV when a McDonalds commercial comes on and rarely mention the name when passing by.

[Happymother]

They make those with such crap so it's now wonder! This is why I make my teen pack her own, healthy lunch!