A new study says healthy school lunches lead to better academics in K-12 schools, but the lunches fail to improve the main problem they’re supposed to address: childhood obesity.
The working paper, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, looked at all public schools in California over a five-year period. It found that schools that contracted with a “healthy school lunch vendor” showed higher test scores on state standardized tests, especially for students in low-income families that qualify for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program.
Still, the study found one important quality lacking from school lunch programs: “We do not find any evidence that healthier school lunches lead to a decrease in obesity rates.” The study’s authors did qualify that remark by saying that it’s possible obesity may have fallen had they been able to look at a time period longer than five years.
Interestingly, the study found no change in the number of meals consumed at schools with healthy lunch vendors, which suggests that the quality of the food rather than the amount of food consumed is responsible for the academic improvement.
The authors suggest more schools should have school lunches prepared by vendors instead of prepared solely in-house. “The relatively low cost of healthy vendors relative to in-house meal preparation makes this a very cost-effective way to raise test scores.”
The working paper was authored by Michael Anderson and Elizabeth Ritchie with the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Justin Gallagher with Case Western Reserve University.
Jason Russell is the contributors editor for the Washington Examiner.
