The school bell rings and the races are off. Laughing junior high school students swarm the playground at Roots International Academy, their bags dragging on the concrete as they speed toward the lunch lines. The line for hot links and snacks is twice as long as the one for the main entrance of the large cafeteria where students can choose from chicken and gravy, pizza and chili fries, and barbeque chicken.

In 2000, about fifteen percent of children in the U.S. were overweight, and today nearly one-third of children in California are overweight. Since the 1970s, the percentage of overweight adolescents and children has more than doubled. A contributing factor to these alarming numbers may come from the food served in school cafeterias.

Carol Jones, a special education teacher at Roots International Academy, says she is disappointed in the lunches served to the students. “I don’t even know what this crap is,” she says, pointing to a side of red-orange fries served with a palm-sized cheese pizza.

Jones has worked in the Oakland school district for over ten years. She is unhappy with the cafeteria food overall and says she has seen little improvement.

While the students at Roots International may only receive one main entrée, Jones and her coworker, Ms. Ella, say that the students have unlimited access to a salad bar with various toppings like oranges, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and dressings during lunch.

While cafeteria school lunches may have been a major factor in the nationwide childhood obesity epidemic, schools have been trying to offer healthier food choices.

Michael Charles, a cafeteria worker for Roots International, has noticed changes in the school food that Sysco Food Company delivers. “At the snack stand, the students are served fruit smoothies that are one-hundred percent Vitamin C and sweetened with fruit juices instead of sugar. We also serve them low-fat chocolate chip cookies, no sugar-added apple sauces, and baked chips,” he says.

Dajon Jackson attended public school in Oakland until last year, and, at twelve years old, he weighed nearly one-hundred and seventy pounds. At his physical checkup nearly three years ago he found out he was thirty pounds overweight and at risk for heart disease. The food offered at school did not help his weight.
Jackson, who now attends San Jose Middle School in Marin County, runs through a list of food items available in his school’s cafeteria. “We have popcorn chicken, chicken-Caesar wraps, taco salads, pizza, hot wings, cookies, Gatorade…,” he says.

Jackson’s cousin Ray Gilbert, who attends Fruitvale Elementary School in Oakland, doesn’t want to be left out and also lists his school’s food selection. “We have hot wings, pizza, corn dogs, breakfast burritos, chili cheese fries with hot dogs, and barbeque chicken…,” he boasts.

These items are not only high in calories, but the sodium and sugar content are soaring.

Therapeutic diet cook Daryl M. Harrison, who has cooked for several colleges and universities, such as Laney College in Oakland and UC Berkeley, says Sysco and U.S. Food Service are the companies that typically serve these schools. “Up until the last few years, the food in cafeterias for grade schools, middle schools, and high schools were found to be a leading cause of childhood obesity,” Harrison says.

While school lunches may have recently improved, Jackson’s grandmother, Colette Dunn, still says school cafeteria food could be better. Dunn is studying to be a nutritionist and says many people fail to realize how harmful the most common foods can be to our health. “The schools shouldn’t serve red meat. I think they should get egg whites,” she says.

While Jackson has changed his eating habits at home by eating turkey burgers instead of beef burgers and brown rice instead of white, he continues to get sodium-induced headaches from items he
consumes at school.

Unhealthy as it may be, the sugar and sodium content in school food appeals to students’ taste buds and remains popular among most students. The only alternative is to pack a lunch.

As knowledge of the health risks increase with time, schools are taking baby steps toward identifying these risks and making smarter food choices for future generations.