SNA calls Michelle Obama remarks ‘offensive’
July 24, 2014 | 06:53 PM
The School Nutrition Association today sent First Lady Michelle Obama a letter saying they consider her remarks at a Tuesday event about people serving junk food to students to be “disappointing” and “offensive to school cafeteria professionals.”
At a Partnership for a Healthier America event encouraging people to drink water, the first lady said it is necessary to continue the fight to maintain the healthier meal standards under the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. SNA has complained that 1 million fewer children are buying lunch in a program that has been serving more than 32 million children.
The first lady said, “In a number of school districts, participation in the lunch program has actually risen. And there’s a simple reason for that: It’s because those districts actually put some effort into marketing the new meals to the kids. They didn’’ just sit back and say, well, the kids like junk food so let’s just give them junk food.”
Patti Montague
In the letter, SNA CEO Patti Montague wrote that, while participation may have gone up in districts with high levels of lower income children receiving free and reduced price lunches, it has gone down in districts with more middle class children
Academic studies released this week showed that white and rural students are more likely to complain about the lunches.
Montague said that despite a marketing campaign and other efforts, participation in the meals programs in the Portland schools has decreased 3 percent.
SNA, she said, wants “common sense” changes so that the meals will appeal to all students and the number of students buying the meals will go back up and return the programs to financial stability.
In the past, the first lady has called school lunch providers “heroes” for their hard and difficult work. SNA represents the school food service directors and the companies that make the foods for school meals programs.
▪ School Nutrition Association letter to Michelle Obama
At a Partnership for a Healthier America event encouraging people to drink water, the first lady said it is necessary to continue the fight to maintain the healthier meal standards under the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. SNA has complained that 1 million fewer children are buying lunch in a program that has been serving more than 32 million children.
The first lady said, “In a number of school districts, participation in the lunch program has actually risen. And there’s a simple reason for that: It’s because those districts actually put some effort into marketing the new meals to the kids. They didn’’ just sit back and say, well, the kids like junk food so let’s just give them junk food.”
In the letter, SNA CEO Patti Montague wrote that, while participation may have gone up in districts with high levels of lower income children receiving free and reduced price lunches, it has gone down in districts with more middle class children
Academic studies released this week showed that white and rural students are more likely to complain about the lunches.
Montague said that despite a marketing campaign and other efforts, participation in the meals programs in the Portland schools has decreased 3 percent.
SNA, she said, wants “common sense” changes so that the meals will appeal to all students and the number of students buying the meals will go back up and return the programs to financial stability.
In the past, the first lady has called school lunch providers “heroes” for their hard and difficult work. SNA represents the school food service directors and the companies that make the foods for school meals programs.
▪ School Nutrition Association letter to Michelle Obama
