Current Aberdeen Lunch Menu

As do many school districts, Aberdeen, South Dakota offers a link on their school district page to view school menus. There is a comprehensive calendar layout for each school within the district that states the meals offered on each given day of that month. Viewers have the option of viewing past menus for the academic year, as well as looking ahead for the next month.

Link to Aberdeen food services: http://www.aberdeen.k12.sd.us/dsc/departments/foodservice/lunchmenus.htm

Often schools post menu options not for the student’s knowledge, but for their parents. This allows parents to look ahead and plan whether or not to send their child to school on a given day with either money to purchase a lunch, or a homemade lunch. Though there is no way of knowing whether all parents with children enrolled in the Aberdeen elementary schools are using this resource, but they certainly should be, if not already doing so. This is because what they will find upon reading the September lunch menu, is that children who eat the lunches served by the cafeteria are by no means consuming nutritious meals on a regular basis.

Students who purchased a lunch in the cafeteria on Thursday, September 4th received pepperoni pizza, lettuce salad with croutons and a banana. To the average 6-11 year old, pizza is a big deal. It is a food that is typically reserved for birthday parties and nights with a babysitter. The reason for this? It is a fattening food that is only a phone call away, something consumed by children on rare occasions. Because of pizza’s novelty at this age, when a child is served a slice of pepperoni pizza for lunch it will become their main focus. There might be a bite or two of the iceberg lettuce, and perhaps a glance at the banana. However, most children will get full on the pizza, and throw away the remainder of their lunch.

Take a look at the other lunches served. Think back to when you were in elementary school, and put yourself in the place of an eight year old attending an Aberdeen school. What would you eat first? What would you ignore? Now put yourself in the place of that eight year old's parent. What would you want your child to eat? What would you want them to ignore? The bottom line is that the Aberdeen school district needs to raise their nutritional standards and set a good example for the students they are educating.

I posted the Aberdeen lunch menu as large as possible, if the photo is too small, here is the link to the PDF: http://www.aberdeen.k12.sd.us/dsc/departments/foodservice/menus/08-09/September/ELM._09-2008._Final.pdf

Change

Can you remember what your elementary school cafeteria served for lunch? For most of you it probably consisted of an unidentified meat, a few flavorless, gray, green beans, a chocolate chip cookie, and a small carton of milk. The sad fact is that the “meal” you are remembering would top the nutritional value of a lunch present in many elementary school cafeterias today. Though some school districts have raised their nutritional standards of lunches, most have not, and this needs to change.

With the number of obese children on the rise something has to be done. It is not fair to the kids. Schools are an establishment whose goals are to foster the education of children. But what education are elementary school children receiving in regards to nutrition? And how attentive can they be with their stomachs full of innutritious foods?

Though some states have raised their standards in regards to the minimum amount of nutritional value, and lowered the amount of fats and sugars allowed, not all have taken such a positive action. Through research I found that South Dakota is among the bottom 10 states in their regards to children’s health. Though this involves other factors such as required gym time during school hours and length of recess activities, a large factor it takes into consideration are the lunches the school provides. This is why I am advocating the revision of the Aberdeen, South Dakota elementary school nutrition standards to mandate that student meals meet specific guidelines in fat, sugar and cholesterol content.