School lunches get no respect.

From the cafeteria workers who serve them to the “mystery meat” ingredients, they are a staple for comedians and the bread and butter for lobbyists. And anyone who has ever eaten a school lunch has an opinion on their quality or their role in expanding American waistlines.

While it still can’t match fast food’s popularity with students, the lowly school lunch has improved over the years. It’s set for an even bigger makeover with new federal nutrition standards targeting childhood obesity, the first major revisions in more than 15 years.

The changes stem from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. It reauthorizes child nutrition programs that include the school meal program, summer food service program, the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program and more. The USDA spent the past year drawing up guidelines under the law, but buckled to pressure from Congress on some points – allowing tomato paste to count as a vegetable on pizza and lifting weekly limits on french fries, for example.

The guidelines apply to lunches subsidized by the federal government. And that includes every public school district in northeast Indiana and most parochial schools.

Political football

Requiring schools to serve nutritious meals in exchange for federal program support seems like a no-brainer. But the billions of dollars involved exposes a child’s lunch to the same lobbying pressure as a defense appropriation. Every food product is backed by a bevy of growers, producers and interest groups working to ensure a place on the cafeteria tray. Big money is at stake: The federal government spent $10.8 billion in 2010.

The lunch-program changes have prompted even greater scrutiny with the endorsement of first lady Michelle Obama. Conservative pundits eager to attack the Obama White House have taken aim at her efforts.

“The road to gastric hell is paved with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Nanny State intentions,” sniped conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. “Remember: The unwritten mantra driving Mrs. Obama’s federal school lunch meddling and expansion is: ‘Cede the children, feed the state.’ ”

Malkin describes a plot to benefit the Service Employees International Union, representing “tens of thousands” of lunchroom workers and “trying to unionize many more at all costs.”

Rising above the political fray, however, is a well-respected Indiana voice. Republican Sen. Richard Lugar is a longtime champion of the national school lunch program.

“The new bill would also make great strides in reducing junk food in schools and improving the nutritional quality of meals,” he wrote in a 2010 New York Times column urging reauthorization. “Nearly one-third of our children are either overweight or obese, which is telling evidence of greater social problems. … I have been through many battles on child nutrition, from my days on the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners to my time as the chairman of the Agriculture Committee. We have debated local and state control, nutritional mandates, the scope of the lunch programs and the unhealthy food choices in school vending machines. This bill, though, is as close to a moment of consensus as can be achieved.”

Healthier diet

Nutrition experts applaud the changes.

“The new school meal standards are one of the most important advances in nutrition in decades,” said Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “They’re much needed, given high childhood obesity rates and the poor state of our children’s diets.”

Candice Hagar, nutrition services director for Fort Wayne Community Schools, is pleased with the new guidelines. They won’t be a challenge to meet, she said, because the district has already been working toward healthier offerings.

“We’ve been incorporating whole grains in our baked products for the last two years,” she said. “We’re working on reducing our trans fats and increasing serving sizes of fruits and vegetables.”

The district also worked with its milk supplier to eliminate whole milk. Even strawberry- and chocolate-flavored milk is low fat.

Hagar, whose background includes experience at IPFW and Parkview Health System, said the biggest challenge is aligning the standards with students’ tastes.

“We want to produce a meal the kids will eat,” she said. “We don’t want our trash cans to be healthy; we want our kids to be healthy. When we try a new recipe, if the majority goes in the trash can, we’ll try to find a new recipe that will work. It is always kind of a tightrope versus what the regulations say.”

On a recent weekday, the lunch at the district’s elementary schools was a turkey-ham and cheese sandwich on a whole-grain bun, baby carrots, red grapes, a slice of unfrosted carrot cake and milk. It was popular with a table of first- and second-graders at Indian Village Elementary School.

“I like this,” said second-grader Chessa Taylor between bites of her sandwich, “I would eat this at home.”

Stephany Bourne, the Indian Village principal and a 35-year veteran educator, said the meals generally please the students, including a chef salad entrée. Only a handful of students bring lunches from home, she said, and those meals are generally less healthful than the school offering.

Hagar said participation in the lunch program district-wide is about 80 percent. The district served 8.5 million meals last year; about 25,000 a day. Its meal menus, including the nutrient makeup, are posted online each month.

The district’s staff of four registered dietitians knows that food fuels achievement.

“There have been a lot of research studies that bear out that nutrition and not being hungry have a lot of effect on how a child concentrates and how well they do,” Hagar said. “From my perspective and my background, we are what we eat and our brain doesn’t function unless we feed it properly. More and more, our administrators and educators are finding that out through their own students that it makes a difference. They can tell the ones who have not had breakfast. There are also behavior problems.”

Vocal critics

The worst reviews for school lunches seem to come from where they have always – the high school cafeteria.

A group of South Side High School students sharing a table last week had little good to say about their options, even though each diner was eating something different. High school students can choose from five different meals. Thursday’s options were chicken tenders, Swedish meatballs, peanut butter and jelly, salad, and yogurt and fruit parfait. Students can also buy a la carte items that include salads, vegetables and fresh fruit.

“The main course usually doesn’t look appetizing,” said senior Karen Rivera, whose lunch choice was a plate of grapes. “I usually just eat the fruit.”

Senior Will Courson-Carr said he doesn’t eat meat; his lunch was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and potato wedges.

Kevin Carpenter-Spillson, another senior, was pleased to hear that the federal government was mandating healthier meals. “That would be amazing,” he said. “I would like to eat more whole-grain foods.”

Carpenter-Spillson said he is a vegetarian and usually avoids the standard lunch entrée.

“On occasion, I get nachos because of the beans. That’s where I get my protein,” he said.

A major source of their discontent, however, seemed to be what they’ve heard about other schools. At Bishop Luers, they insisted, there’s carry-out pizza and Chick-Fil-A.

The same day’s menu at Bishop Luers? Choice of grilled cheese or peanut butter and jelly.