According to the Centers for Disease Control, "Childhood obesity has more than doubled among children and quadrupled among adolescents over the past 30 years," meaning that children Americans need to start eating healthier, including healthier school lunches. The National School Lunch Act is a fairly recent addition to American society. Indeed, as the world declared war for the second time, the United States began to worry about the strength and health of the country's soldiers. However, in the beginning, selling excess agricultural produce was more important than preparing a healthy and balanced meal for the students. Unfortunately, many children from poorer families could not afford well-balanced school lunches, so to compensate, the School Lunch program changed its focus to help these students. This program, however, squeezed school lunch budgets, and schools had trouble keeping up with the amount of free meals they had to provide, so they came up with a few extra ways to raise revenue. However, in a small Massachusetts town, one chef makes a difference in the health of the school lunches students eat every day and proves that hiring a trained chef to cook real, healthy meals can increase profits. Unfortunately, this is not the case in most schools across the nation. The health quality of food served in school canteens is extremely poor and has been allowed to worsen further with a new set of rule changes. However, some improvements are currently underway to increase the quality of healthiness of the food served to students, including teaching all about food and its nutritional information, both good and bad. In order for students to eat healthier lunches at school, the USDA must implement healthier foods... middle of paper... and related nutritional information, both good and bad. Works Cited Christie, Kathy. “Stateline: Students are what they eat too.” Phi Delta Kappan 84.5 (2003): 341-342. PDF file.Kalafa, Amy. Lunch Wars: How to Start a Food Revolution in Schools and Win the Battle for Our Children's Health. New York: Jeremy P. Tacher/Penguin, 2011. eBook Reader.Levine, Susan. School Lunch Policy: The Surprising Story of America's Favorite Welfare Program. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2008. Print."National School Lunch Act." Poverty and Government in America: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009. Creed Reference. Network. 21 January 2014."School meals." fns.usda.gov. Np, nd Web. 02 February 2014.Wu, Sarah. Fed Up with Lunch: How an Anonymous Teacher Revealed the Truth About School Lunches and How to Change Them! San Francisco, CA: Chronicle, 2011. E