Dear Mrs. Obama,
As the father of an 11-year old son, I fully appreciate your efforts to improve school lunch programs.
Montgomery County, where my son attends school, has tried hard to provide kids a variety of appealing, quality, nutritious school meals in a cost effective and efficient manner. According to the County's Public School website, it has successfully eliminated artificial trans-fat from its menu items; increased the availability of fresh fruit, vegetables and salad choices; and modified recipes to reduce fat and sodium content.
However, despite these achievements, I still feel uneasy about the school lunch program. It is not only because my son complains that the variety of dishes is poor and that bland frozen food items still dominate the menu.
I am sure you read the Washington Post article on Japan's school lunch program published on January 26.[1] There are a lot of differences between school lunches in Japan and the U.S. Among the differences, the article emphasized the fact that most of the nutritious and tasty lunch dishes are made from scratch at each school in Japan, utilizing locally grown vegetables and other ingredients. It also pointed out that Japan's central government regulations on school lunches are minimal, and the costs charged to parents are low.
However, that is not the point I wish to make here. More importantly, as the article slightly touched upon at the end, school lunch is a part of a child's education in Japan, whereas this does not seem to be the case in the U.S. And by education, I do not mean that it is limited to nutritional education.
Japan's School Lunch Program Act of 1954 states that the school lunch program has to be implemented, among several purposes, to deepen children's understanding that our dietary life is built upon the blessings of nature, to foster respectful attitudes towards life and nature, and to encourage environmental conservation. The program is also expected to deepen children's understanding that our dietary life is supported by various activities of mankind and to foster an attitude that respects diligent work. Promoting health through adequate nutrition is just one of the purposes.
So why do the purposes of school lunch programs matter?
My son, my wife, and I feel that the most disturbing aspect of the school lunch program in this country is that we hardly see any respect for the food, life, nature, environment, and people who make that lunch possible. Few attempts are made to discourage kids from picky eating or to encourage proper portion control to prevent food from being wasted.
Even the amount of time allocated for lunch seems insufficient to encourage healthy eating. Because cafeterias have to be vacated rather quickly for rotational use by other students, kids seem incentivized to leave foods uneaten and to throw them away, so they can go play in the schoolyard.
Even though I understand the meals have become more nutritious, it seems to me that the school lunch program is designed just to fill kids' stomachs (like feeding livestock). No one is instilling a sense of respect for food, where it came from, or those associated with it.
While nutrition and portion control are important, without encouraging a broader understanding and appreciation of nature's blessings, the human efforts involved in food production, and environmental sustainability, I would say with confidence that the U.S. will never succeed in its goal of reducing obesity.
For your information, JICA has incorporated school lunch programs in some of our education/health projects in developing countries. Though the programs often start as measures to help undernourished or poorly-fed kids, or as incentives for parents to send their kids to school, we never forget that the school lunch program is part of a child's education about the world outside the classroom.
Once people realize the educational opportunities associated with the school lunch program, I believe no adult would ever argue that pizza is a vegetable.
Sincerely yours,
Keiichiro Nakazawa
