Will onerous federal school lunch mandates bankrupt school lunch programs

It was a key initiative from the First Lady – force kids to eat better in school by only serving healthy.

The only problem is, if you don’t offer what they like, the kids won’t participate.

That is the experience in Eastern Kentucky, as The Independent’s “Fewer students buying school lunches, Drop in meal program participation causing budget problems” points out. At the same time school lunch program incomes are dropping due to lower participation, the newly mandated diets require more expensive foods. That creates a double-trouble situation, because lunch programs must operate in the black.

Russell Independent and Greenup County are experiencing significant financial problems because of the new lunch rules. The Ashland Independent School District also reported participation drops at the beginning of the year but now say some of that loss has been recovered as the lunch staff struggles mightily to get kids to eat what the feds have decreed is healthy.

Elsewhere, at least one New York school district is dumping the federal lunch program completely due to skyrocketing costs and dramatically lower student participation.

This is to be expected when onerous federal mandates are used in place of intelligently designed education programs that encourage kids to eat the right stuff.