One of the diagrams in BAD FOR YOU charts the differences – no, make that the similarities – between school lunches and meals served to inmates. Turns out that the food a prisoner and a student receive vary very little (well, the kid’s meal does cost a whole SIX cents more).
Now, the BAD FOR YOU boys have discovered a youth nonprofit website called DoSomething.org that offers pupils an opportunity to photograph their plate of unpleasantness and upload it to a section on the site called Fed Up. Fellow students can then vote on whether they would “Eat It” or “Toss It” (“Tossing It Up” is not an option – though it should be given the looks of some of the shots).
The purpose of the project isn’t just for laughs, but also to gather data and “create a ‘heat map’ of school lunches in the U.S.,” according to The Huffington Post. “Their goal is to raise awareness of the sad state of nutrition in public schools.”
Hey teens, teachers are always telling you how important it is be share. So this is a chance to share your cruddy meal with the rest of the world.
And speaking of sharing, here are a few more facts about high school lunches that we’ll include from The Huffington Post article:
• According to the USDA a typical school lunch far exceeds the recommended 500 milligrams of sodium; some districts, in fact, serve lunches with more than 1,000 milligrams.
• The USDA also reports that less than 1/3 of schools stay below the recommended standard for fat content in their meals.
• Last year 21 million students relied on free and reduced lunch as their primary meal of the day. Up to 65 percent of their daily calorie intake comes from school provided meals.
• Unbalanced nutrition leads to decreased performance in school, obesity, diabetes, and a whole slew of other health problems.
(Photo above actual lunch shot from Fed Up)