Schools are already taking the initiative to ban junk foods, and offer healthier food options instead.

Pop tarts, French fries, nachos are already out of the picture in school meals. This year, another school lunch is removed. Maplewoood Richmond Heights School District is the first to remove chicken nuggets from their school lunch menus.

“We’re not serving any chicken nuggets,” said a triumphant Carol Kon, the food service director for the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District. “We’re the first to do that.” With a total of 1,150 students, this school district has intentionally dissuaded itself from offering unhealthy foods; thereby making themselves an envy of other school districts in the region.

The school district is indeed working hand-in-hand as everyone is involved in their promotion of healthy school lunches. Students cultivate the district’s own vegetable garden while preschoolers take care of the chicken coop. On the other hand, local famers provide about a fifth of the district’s produce.

Sooner or later, the district’s going to have their processing facility. At the same time this year, they are getting whole chickens. Thus, they are totally getting rid of processed and breaded foods.

“There’s a huge need for this,” said Linda Henke, the district’s superintendent, speaking about the improvements. “To get kids to focus on school, and come to class with energy and enthusiasm, this is essential.”

The number of overweight or obese children are actually rising, with more than a third of the country is gaining excess weight. School food programs that have been serving 33 million American students have been scrutinized in the past years. Critics blame schools and the food industry for encouraging food and sugary soda while the federal government is blamed for keeping on a system that’s dependent on surplus commodities and highly processed food items.

But for the last few years, this scenario is changing little by little. “There’s Michelle Obama taking initiative, there’s Jamie Oliver’s TV show, there’s recognition that there’s a crisis and schools have the power to make positive change,” said Mark Bishop, of the Chicago-based Healthy Schools Campaign. “So many schools are making those changes.”

As months and years pass by, there would be more and more efforts geared towards the promotion of healthy eating and lifestyles.  Earlier this month, the Senate has already paved the way for the Child Nutrition Act’s reauthorization – which governs the National School Lunch Program. According to advocates, whenever the House of Representatives do their part in the coming weeks, it could bring in more significant changes on the school’s lunch program.

One of its most important provisions is the government’s action on increasing the amount given to districts by 6 cents per meal. “This is the first noninflationary increase to the lunch program ever,” Bishop said. “We’re disappointed that it’s only 6 cents, but every penny helps.”

In another provision, the US Department of Agriculture is also given the responsibility to keep an eye on the school lunch program as well as to control the foods and beverages within the school campus. Thus, federal authority is already extended to vending machines, a la carte lines and even school stores – those who have gravely criticized for being highly concerned on becoming profitable instead of providing healthy food options for kids.

The Department of Agriculture is also of thinking of changing the nutritional standards that school districts are required to meet. According to some critics, the current guidelines have not been updated since 1995. So, these do not actually meet the federal dietary guidelines that Americans should adhere to.

Last year, the Institute of Medicine, has proposed guidelines that the department can implement. If the department approves, calories, fats and sodium are delimited in schools for them to avail of the increased reimbursement rates. Consequently, candy bars, whole milk, soda and fried chips will be totally out of the picture while requiring more whole grains and vegetables.

Aside from this, districts are also compelled to meet the food-based guidelines and not on the nutrient-based guidelines. According to critics, nutrient-based guidelines paved the way for people’s dependence on fortified, processed food, rather than “real” food. “With the focus on nutrients rather than nutrition, you have nutrient-infused food,” Henke said. “That doesn’t have anything to do with actual food.” The new standard, on the other hand, would require more whole grains and vegetables.

Supposedly, the Child Nutrition Act is reauthorized every five years and as of now, it is on a one-year extension. For every reauthorization, nutrition advocates have been promoting some revisions However, the food industry strongly resisted during.

The good news, though, is that times have changed. At this point, the food industry is already supporting the changes. Even the most unwilling school districts have also expressed their support.

“Part of the attitude has been: ‘Get the government off my back. I’m a food professional. Don’t tell me how to do my job’” Bishop said. “But now there’s a much greater awareness that this is about building relationships. We need the government, the state, the community, to figure this out.”

Indeed, many school districts have taken the initiative already. Serving 17,000 students, the Parkway School District has already minimized the soda while raising their offerings of fresh fruits and vegetables. Through an Internet-based program that was launched just last year, parents have the opportunity to track what their children are buying in the school cafeteria.

“They can check their child’s spending history, and they can put a comment on their account. We can put a code in that says, ‘no chips,’” explained Michael Kanak, the district’s longtime food service director. “When Johnny comes through with two bags of chips, we say, sorry you have to put those back.”

In another school district, the Mehlville School District, their newly hired food service director, Katie Koester, is also doing her part to ensure that the schools have nothing but healthy foods on the cafeteria. She experimented with baked fries and has added whole grain bread as well. Aside from this, she is also giving her very best as she tries to connect with parents, ensuring that their kids start to take on better eating habits and healthier foods at home.

“It’s about educating them to eat in moderation. That’s the key,” she said. “You don’t eat a whole pizza.” School districts are actually trying their best to improve on these matters. But they’re also facing challenges, most especially when it comes to the budgets – which the proposed increase in the reimbursement rate will hardly attend to.

“The number they’re considering is $8 billion,” Kanak said, referring to the proposed boost. “That sounds like a lot, but that’s for 33 million kids, and over 10 years it works out to about a nickel a meal. You really can’t do a lot of radical improvement on that.”

On the other hand, most food service directors, say that it’s not about the budget or the resources. Instead, the problem lies on the kids’ sense of tastes that’s built on a type of diet that’s sugary, fatty and salty.

“The challenge is to serve healthy snacks, but also something the kids are going to take,” Kanak said. “If it’s going in the trash it doesn’t matter how nutritious it is.” Despite of this, school districts are trying their best to improve their school lunches and hopefully help in changing children’s eating habits to better ones. This is evident in a recent survey by the School Nutrition Association which showed that nine out of 10 schools are increasing offerings of whole grain products and fresh produce, nearly 70 percent are reducing or eliminating sodium in foods, and about 65 percent are reducing sugar.

Nutrition advocates are hoping that the school districts’ driving force will continue until the last kid in the world takes on a healthier eating habit. With reference to the Child Nutrition Act, Bishop is hoping that it will be passed. “We need to get this bill passed,” Bishop said, “If this doesn’t happen this year, it won’t happen. Next year everybody’s going to be fighting over the Farm Bill.”