--- title: Healthy Lunch Debate: School Leaders Say Kids Like Healthy Choices description: At least, a little bit canonical: https://time.com/3012865/healthy-lunches-kids-usda-survey/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-21T17:40:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:01:03.574Z article:section: Health og:title: School administrators say kids "generally like" healthy school lunches og:description: At least, a little bit og:url: https://time.com/3012865/healthy-lunches-kids-usda-survey/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5ff730c4e7a48e84/69869c8e361760a12690d216/150968856.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5125 og:image:height: 2883 og:image:alt: 150968856 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: School administrators say kids "generally like" healthy school lunches twitter:description: At least, a little bit twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5ff730c4e7a48e84/69869c8e361760a12690d216/150968856.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # School Administrators: Kids Like Healthy Lunches Just Fine > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Alice Waters on Edible Education [Watch (HLS stream): Alice Waters on Edible Education](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BRkbfoQ5.m3u8) (4:14)  _Published 2014-04-24. Alice Waters, chef and activist, talks about her project The Edible Schoolyard_ by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Jul 21, 2014 5:40 PM UTC  Female student carrying tray in cafeteria Female student carrying tray in cafeteria Tetra Images—Getty Images/Brand X by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Jul 21, 2014 5:40 PM UTC As the battle rages on over whether or not to scrap healthier options in public school lunch, a new survey suggests students actually _like_ the nutritional meals they’re being offered. Well, at least they like it enough to keep from complaining to school administrators about it. Last school year, administrators reported students started off complaining about the healthier take on lunch, after the USDA introduced new standards in 2012 that called for a reduction in sugar, sodium and fat in meals and the addition of more whole grains, vegetables, and fruit in an effort to confront childhood obesity. But most had come around by the spring, they reported in a new study backed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Now, around 70% of elementary school students “generally like the new lunch,” they said. Middle and high school administrators reported similar reactions, with 70% and 63% of students “generally” liking the new lunches, respectively. Schools also report few drop-offs in school lunch participation with the advent of the new standards. About 64.6% of elementary schools said “about the same” number of students purchased school lunches last school year, compared to the year before. “The updated meals standards are resulting in healthier meals for tens of millions of kids,” said Lindsey Turner, lead author of the first study, and co-investigator for Bridging the Gap, a research program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), which funded the study in a statement. “Our studies show that kids are okay with these changes, and that there have not been widespread challenges with kids not buying or eating the meals.” Yet, according to the new survey to be published in an upcoming issue of the [Childhood Obesity ](http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/chi.2014.0038)journal, high school students and students in rural schools have been more reluctant to accept the changes. About 25% of middle and high school administrators reported noticing “a little more” plate waste during the 2012-2013 school year, while 16% of middle schools and 20% of high schools reported noticing “much more” waste. Administrators at rural schools also reported more plate waste and more complaints than their urban counterparts, which is troubling given the higher rates of obesity among youth in rural areas. But among poor urban youth, the researchers found higher rates of consumption and more meal purchases—suggesting those kids opting out of the school lunch program are those who can afford to eat elsewhere. “It is possible that widespread implementation of national policy has been effective for improving the diets of socioeconomically disadvantaged children,” said the study’s authors, “but more research is needed to understand the effect of changes in the meal standards on children’s participation and dietary intake.” There has been much debate over the Department of Agriculture’s updated school nutrition standards this year. In fact, Monday’s survey results stand in contrast to a recent USDA report that showed about 1 million fewer students chose to eat school meals every day during the 2012-2013 school year. The School Nutrition Association, a long time supporter of healthy options for kids, [rolled back](http://time.com/2993491/theres-a-lot-of-junk-food-at-the-school-nutrition-conference/) some of its support earlier this year due to the burden the standards place on already cash-strapped schools. In May, House Republicans ok’d a [spending bill](http://time.com/137310/house-republicans-pass-a-hot-potato-on-healthy-federally-subsidized-meals/) that would allow schools to opt out of following the healthy school rules, which pump up the amount of fruit, vegetables, and whole grains served to kids at school while reducing fat, sugar, and sodium. But champions of the standards, including [First Lady Michelle Obama](http://time.com/120611/michelle-obama-school-lunches/), argue rolling back the standards would be a bad choice for kids. In a statement Monday, the School Nutrition Association said the survey’s “perceptions about school meals do not reflect reality.” “More kids aren’t buying lunches,” Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association, tells TIME. ## Transcript [ SOUND ] Edible education is an idea whose time has come. It's a way of teaching. It has to do with the growing of food and the way that we nourish ourselves. [ MUSIC ] In the mid' 80s and early' 90s, we were really in a fast- food culture, it was also the vice of fast, cheap and easy that had really taken over. Tonight, McDonald is making my family dinner because there's no way I can tell these big brown eyes mommy doesn't have time. And we need to teach children how to nourish themselves. And we need to edible educate every child in America. When I went to the edible school- yard, I was flowered. What I loved most was, the collaboration. The urgency of working together and making things work, of the children taking what they were planting and cutting down and gathering, and bringing it into the kitchen and cooking along with the chef. I also loved the way the chickens walked around [ LAUGH ] and visited everyone. This isn't just a garden in a school, I've never thought of it that way. I always thought about it as a complete [ INAUDIBLE ] that had the cafeteria at the centre. They could learn the value, the cooperation that happens when children cook together. They are having a master chef competition. Each table becomes a team, and they compete with the other two tables in the kitchen to plan a menu, execute the menu, and then present it. They're working independently with no help from any teachers or volunteers. And they are selecting their own vegetables, and timing themselves, and organizing themselves. We need to understand the traditional foods that were so nourishing to people, and we have to learn how to make these things tasty. And it actually tastes good like, it's sweet and spicy, and really nice. When they first saw food like chick peas, [ SOUND ] they didn't want to taste it. You know, the unknown doesn't always look like it's smiling at you, I love to see the children really cooking. I love the way they learned to cut like a chef. They learned to, try food. Honestly the sausage stuff if really good. I used some of the recipes that they can own and if I really like it, then I start trying to cook it. Learning how to cook, learning how to grow food. Everyone needs to know these things, because they're they're essential for our survival. We know about the health issues of fast food, we know about poverty, we know about hunger in America. This is something that there really needs to be taught in a very different way. Children will not immediately change their diets because someone has told them that it would be better to do so. I'm not wanting to tell children what to eat, I'm wanting to win them over. We need to live on the planet together. We need to be good stewards, we need to know how to nourish ourselves, and we need to know how to come to the table. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3012865/healthy-lunches-kids-usda-survey/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3012865/healthy-lunches-kids-usda-survey/"},"headline":"School Administrators: Kids Like Healthy Lunches Just Fine","datePublished":"2014-07-21T17:40:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:01:03.574Z","description":"According to a new survey published in the Childhood Obesity journal","url":"https://time.com/3012865/healthy-lunches-kids-usda-survey/","keywords":["Education","Congress","Food","Obesity"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5ff730c4e7a48e84/69869c8e361760a12690d216/150968856.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5ff730c4e7a48e84/69869c8e361760a12690d216/150968856.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"150968856","caption":"150968856","creditText":"Tetra Images—Getty Images/Brand X","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/education/","name":"Education"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3012865/healthy-lunches-kids-usda-survey/","name":"School Administrators: Kids Like Healthy Lunches Just Fine"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Alice Waters on Edible Education","description":"Alice Waters, chef and activist, talks about her project The Edible Schoolyard","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/BRkbfoQ5/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-04-24T10:24:55.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/BRkbfoQ5.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3012865/healthy-lunches-kids-usda-survey/","duration":"PT4M14S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3012865/healthy-lunches-kids-usda-survey/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```