eat your vegetables
Study: Kids are just throwing away their healthier school lunches
You can lead a child to an apple, but you can't make him eat it. A new study out of Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests children in America may be getting healthier food at school thanks to First Lady Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign, but they're not actually eating it.
The children the researchers observed would generally take about one bite of the healthy items in their lunch before throwing the rest away. Less than one fourth tasted their vegetables at all. This data corresponds with reports that 83.7 percent of school districts have seen an increase in food waste since the healthy eating program was enacted in 2010.
The study notes that changes in the cafeteria environment — length of lunch time, noise level, and teacher supervision — had more of an influence on students' eating habits than simply getting healthy stuff on their trays.