School dinner

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A school dinner is a meal (dinner or lunch) provided to students at a school. It is usually served just sometime around noon.

Some schools have theme days whereby food is served in a particular style. For example, the school might serve Chinese cuisine to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

In the United States, many public schools participate in a federally funded child nutrition program, the National School Lunch Program, which provides reimbursement for reduced price, free, and even a small reimbursement for paid meals to children. The quality of food in the program has been derided by movies such as Super Size Me and in parodic songs such as Adam Sandler's "Lunch Lady Land." As childhood obesity becomes more of a public policy issue, health advocates are working to improve this program. All school meals that are subsidized must meet nutrition standards (lunch must meet 1/3 of the Recommended Dietary Allowance for children). More recent legislation has addressed the sale of foods with minimal nutrition and even a la carte sales. No schools are required by federal regulations to provide meals but some states have state legislation that requires schools with higher numbers of needy students to provide lunches and/or breakfasts.

School dinners became a big topic in the UK in 2004 when chef Jamie Oliver spearheaded a campaign to improve the quality of the meals. School dinners at state schools are usually made by outside caterers whose incentive is increasing their profits. Since many of the requirements for nutritional content were removed in the 1980s, there is little reason for caterers to sell anything other than the most profitable food, which will be the cheapest that children will eat. After a television documentary was shown on Channel 4 (Jamie's School Dinners), the public showed support for the increase of funding for school meals, causing the government to create the School Food Trust. The topic became a factor in the 2005 UK general election.