School kids around the country are tweeting rather unfortunate pictures of the meals they’re being served at lunchtime, and thanking first lady and healthy school food advocate Michelle Obama for their bowls of mush and mystery proteins.
The tweets, which have carried the not-so-subtle ThanksMichelleObama hashtag, were being sent out at a rate of 40 per minute late last week, but started to gain momentum some 10 days back and are still continuing to be posted.
In some cases, the sarcastic tweets have poked fun at the strange juxtaposition of healthy foods, like fruit, and peculiar ones, like whatever this mealy substance is:
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Had a very healthylunch today. The apple definitely made up for the “mystery mush” ThanksMichelleObama pic.twitter.com/RWCnQRCxJK
In other tweets, the posts have taken issue with the new, purportedly healthier meals more generally.
ThanksMichelleObama thanks to you I’ve just stopped eating. At four dollars I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy pic.twitter.com/hrrTgKiI02
One user even tweeted a side-by-side photo of an American public school lunch and French public school lunch to drive the point home.
The country’s public school meal program has undergone a good deal of change over the past few years, largely driven by a national push for more nutritious lunch trays. And Michelle Obama, arguably the school nutrition movement’s most public proponent, has become a symbol of the healthier meals. She was an instrumental player in the implementation of new health standards in 2012, which mandate minimum fruit, vegetable, and whole grain servings, as well as maximum sodium, sugar and fat contents. And she helped inspire more recent changes that took effect this school year banning schools from serving soda and sugary drinks.
By some measures, the new requirements have been wildly successful. A recent study in Virginia found that school children were eating significantly healthier meals when the food was chosen by their school, rather than their parents. A similar study, conducted earlier this year in Massachusetts, concluded the same thing. Parents, according to senior author Jeanne Goldberg, were serving lunches “comprised more of packaged foods than anything else.”
But just because children are being served healthy food doesn’t mean they’re eating it. A study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that some 60 percent of vegetables and 40 percent of fresh fruit are thrown away. A separate study notes a significant increase in waste in many schools ever since the new health standards were implemented.
“We’ve seen thousands of examples of healthy, delicious school lunches that meet the new standards being made across the country by talented school chefs,” said Sam Kass, executive director of Let’s Move! and senior policy adviser for Nutrition.
The difference, then, might not be Michelle Obama’s efforts. It could simply be that everyone has a camera on their phone, and public platform to share pictures.
Let me tell you something, kids, school lunches have ALWAYS been bad. We just didn’t have decent camera phones. ThanksMichelleObama
“Student complaining about school lunch is nothing new – it has nothing to do with the new lunch standards,” said Kass.
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