First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign is claiming that salad bars have increased student participation in school lunch, despite a report that found one million children fled the lunch line in response to her new lunch standards.
"Let’s Move!" released findings from their own survey for its "Salad Bars to Schools" program on Thursday, touting the addition of salad bars in some schools.
"More than 1.7 million school-age children in the United States have better access to fresh fruits and vegetables thanks to new salad bars donated to schools through Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools," Let’s Move said in a blog post. "Recently, the program partnership released results of a survey of recipient school districts. Among the benefits of school salad bars reported by school food service directors were increased student access to fresh fruits and vegetables and increased student participation in the school lunch program."
The campaign is making the claim based on their survey of 357 school districts, with the report finding, among other things, that 78 percent of schools bought more fruits and vegetables because they now have salad bars.
They also claimed that 57 percent of the schools saw increased participation in school lunch, which they credited to salad bars.
"School administrators, teachers, staff, and parents are supportive of school salad bars," another finding read.
Let’s Move failed to mention other reports that found school lunch participation has declined since the implementation of the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, which was championed by the first lady.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), one million kids stopped participating in the school lunch program during the 2012-2013 school year, the first year the law went into effect. Forty-eight out of 50 states faced challenges implementing the new healthier standards, which resulted in kids throwing out their fruits and vegetables, student boycotts, higher lunch costs, and odd food pairings such as "cheese stick with shrimp" in order for schools to comply with the complicated rules.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has touted the new standards as "popular," despite complaints from children that the food "tastes like vomit."
Salad Bars to Schools is Let’s Move’s partnership between the Food Family Farming Foundation, National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance, United Fresh Produce Association Foundation, and Whole Foods Market. The organizations have donated roughly 3,400 salad bars to schools across the country.
"School salad bars are gaining momentum from coast-to-coast," said Ann Cooper, founder of the Food Family Farming Foundation. "It’s gratifying to see kids, teachers, and parents getting excited about fresh fruits and vegetables."
More than 30 million children participate in the National School Lunch Program every day, including 19 million that receive free lunch. The program cost $11.6 billion in fiscal year 2012. The program also has a high rate of fraud, as 15.69 percent of its payments were improper last year, amounting to $1.8 billion.
Schools have asked Congress and the Obama administration to roll back the lunch rules due to the cost and difficulty of putting them in place.
Mrs. Obama responded on Thursday and defending the standards, saying it would be "unacceptable" to go back to the way lunches were.
"Of course it’s hard. That we expected," she said. "We expected those challenges, particularly among our oldest kids who’ve grown up eating junk food."
"But what we did not expect was for the grownups to go along with it and say, ‘Well, this is too hard and it costs too much money so let’s stop even though we have 90 percent compliance,’" Mrs. Obama said.