Foods found in Richland County’s school cafeterias are healthier these days thanks to new federal school lunch guidelines, but the meal makeover has not come without challenges for the school’s food service directors both financially and nutritionally.
“We were moving toward better nutrition anyway, but now the law has made things substantially more complicated than they used to be,” said Richard Hostetler, food service director at Shelby City Schools for the past 30 years. “(The changes made) in the last two years are more than my other 28 years added together.”
Hostetler explained the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 with the purpose of improving child nutrition. The act authorizes funding and sets policy for the USDA’s core child nutrition programs including the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program. Hostetler noted meal guidelines were first implemented in 2012 and additional reforms will continue through 2017.
“There are a lot of good things that come of it; the frustration is it’s just so complicated,” said Hostetler. “It’s like I’m a dietician in a hospital.”
Some of the guidelines set for food service directors include serving 100 percent whole-grain breads, one of five subgroups of vegetables per day including dark green, red-orange, starchy and legumes, fat-free flavored milk, and limitations on sodium and calories, among other restrictions. Jane Fortman, food service director at Mansfield City Schools for the past 24 years, said the constant monitoring of nutrition information can be difficult.
“It’s a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle,” she said. “You have to watch everything that goes into a meal on a daily basis and then calculate that on a weekly basis as well.”
Besides keeping in line with meal requirements, Fortman said food service directors often battle student perceptions of healthy food. For example, Fortman and Hostetler both stated in Mansfield and Shelby the switch was made to 100 percent whole-grain breads without telling the students. Lexington Local Schools food service director Tricia Volz explained a student must be taught to eat healthy, and often will not try foods they aren’t used to at home.
“Kids like the processed food because that’s what they have at home, and what you get at home is what you want to eat at school,” said Volz, who has served as Lexington’s food service director for 24 years. “I have kids of my own and they eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains; they grew up on that so they eat it and they don’t think anything about it. Kids that haven’t grown up on that, they just throw their fruits and vegetables into the garbage.”
And according to Fortman, students are required to take a fruit or vegetable in order to qualify as a meal. She stated cafeteria cashiers will send a student back through the line to choose a fruit or vegetable if they do not have one on their tray by checkout.
“It’s supposed to encourage the students to try fruits and vegetables,” she said. “I’m hoping at least they try it. It might take a long time, but if they start seeing it on a tray on a daily basis they might be more apt to try it.”
Another concern among food service directors is the science not supporting some of the meal decisions made. Hostetler explained schools are not allowed to serve milk with higher than one percent dairy fat, and flavored milk must be skim.
“So our chocolate milk now is fat free, and 80 percent of the kids take chocolate milk so they’re not getting dairy fat,” he said. “Your brain is made out of nerve cells, and your body needs dairy fat for nerve cells to develop well. So we’re making rules based on guesses. That’s frustrating.”
Volz echoed Hostetler’s concerns, noting a common problem for Lexington schools is meals not meeting the caloric needs of athletes and students with high metabolisms.
“It’s hard for them to get enough calories to get through their day,” she said. “I have a son who is a freshman at the high school this year, he buys a lunch and packs a lunch in order for him to get enough calories to get through the day and through cross country practice.”
However, meeting the requirements for what constitutes a “meal” is vastly important for food service directors in order to receive reimbursement from the federal government. According to Hostetler, in 2013 reimbursements from the federal and state government in Shelby amounted to 44 percent of the food service department’s income, roughly $400,000.
“A school district cannot afford to not get that government reimbursement,” said Fortman. “The prices we charge for meals need to cover everything, our food costs and labor costs and benefit costs. Food services in our district are separately funded from general funds. In essence we’re running a small business within a school district.”
Still, the cost of eating healthy is not cheap. For the price of dinner rolls alone, Hostetler said switching from white bread to whole-grain bread will cost $4,500.
“I understand the nutrition behind it, but it’s expensive,” said Hostetler. “We in food service in Shelby are not supposed to cost the local taxpayers any of their local taxes in order to run the food service program. We’re supposed to at least break even. We feel the education, the books, is more important than the burgers. And we work really hard at that, and it’s getting a little bit tougher.”
Another cost factor comes from the number of students in each district receiving free or reduced-priced lunches. At Mansfield City Schools, 80 to 85 percent of the 2,700 students served are free or at a reduced price. At Shelby City Schools, approximately 50 percent of 2,100 students are on free or reduced lunches. At Lexington Local Schools, only 27 percent of 2,800 students are on free or reduced lunches, and Volz said this has drastically affected the number of meals she serves each day.
“The higher free and reduced percentage you have, the better chance you have of them eating,” said Volz. “Our kids have the choice, they have the money that they can choose to pack or buy. If they can bring in what they want, they’re going to bring it from home. We’ve driven them from buying to packing because they don’t want what we’re serving.”
The dramatic dive in meals served each day in Lexington has had a huge impact on Lexington’s finances. Volz stated in 2013 the food service department was forced to eliminate staff members and satellite lunches to the elementary schools because of the staffing issue. Satellite lunches are lunches prepared at one school and transported to another school via truck, where it is then cooked and served.
“They talked about going off the school lunch program at the high school and junior high level,” said Volz. “Hopefully we will never get to the point where we have to do that, but if we’re operating in the red…we are to be a self-supporting entity of the school, which we have been in the last 22 out of 23 years.”
Despite the difficulties brought about by the new standards, local food service directors can agree on the program’s positives. Fortman noted realistically, the standards are what most people should be eating, school-aged or not.
“They definitely are going by what the nation as a whole should be eating, we should be eating more fruits and vegetables and whole grains,” she said. “It’s just they’re a little difficult because of the nature that it is difficult to eat a good diet.”
Volz agreed, adding learning proper portions in a world of supersizing is an invaluable lesson.
“I don’t know one food service director in the state of Ohio, probably in the United States, that doesn’t want to serve a kid a healthy meal,” said Volz. “But it’s only healthy if they eat it. I think it’s a good thing, but the problem came in with how they decided to institute it.”
But are Richland County’s students healthier thanks to the changes? That remains to be seen. When asked the question, Hostetler expressed reservations.
“If we’re open for school 178 days and a student eats three meals a day, and they get a lunch from us every day that they can, we have served them 16 percent of their meals,” he said. “We cannot change their body type, we cannot change their eating habits, with 16 percent of their meals. It’s foolish to think we can.”