nutrition

A member of the Board of School Committee said serving healthier meals at lunch is driving students to eat more junk food just to fill up.

Former U.S. military leaders have identified a latent threat to the potential for a leaner, more agile fighting force: the school vending machine.

School districts in Iowa, among other places, are facing a delicate balancing act: Find a way to collect past-due balances for school meals while ensuring that students don’t go hungry.

A coalition of consumer groups is recommending the U.S. Department of Agriculture get tuna out of school lunchrooms after tests of canned tuna sold to schools found highly variable levels of mercury, in some cases higher than federal guidelines.

In a typical classroom of 20 children, one is likely to have a food allergy that could cause a severe reaction. And one in six children with a food allergy will have his or her first allergic reaction at school.

Worried that children were losing the war on obesity, New York City began to slim down its school lunch offerings several years ago, replacing fries with baked potato strips and introducing nonfat chocolate milk, whole grain pasta and salad bars, among other tweaks.

Mississippi has a major obesity epidemic and the state is fighting back - starting with children.

It's lunchtime at McKinley Elementary School in San Diego, and the kitchen is filled with the aroma of chicken teriyaki and hamburgers. But there are no pots or cooking utensils in sight. An industrial four-burner stove sits idle.