What Do People Think of School Lunch?
Two students and a lunch cook weigh in on the healthier school lunches of 2015 and the #ThanksMichelleObama backlash.
Food is essential for life. Every day we eat so we can move on, with energy each and every day. We make it in creative ways or at least try to. A lot of students agree schools aren’t good at it. Most students try their best to substitute school lunch. They either complain and force themselves to eat it or complain and starve themselves. Is it just the students complaining or are the lunch ladies just cooking up bad stuff?
An average school lunch has changed over the years. It’s changed from more junk food and less healthy to all the way healthy and rarely getting a cookie or dessert. We never know what’s in that mystery meat or chicken nuggets. Most students tweet or post their school lunches, with a #ThanksMichelleObama, instead of eating it. In reality school lunches aren’t half bad. Schools and Michelle Obama are just trying to help get kids back in the healthy zone. And by doing this they changed our lunches to help us as a benefit in which we do not see.
I decided to ask different students and staff around our school what their opinions were about our school lunches. I chose people who were all very different and not alike from each other. Two of the people were students and the last one was one of the wonderful lunch ladies. Some questions I thought were necessary to ask were: How would you describe school lunch? Do you like the appearance of school lunch? What about the taste of the food? And the last question was (it was specified for one of the people on the lunch staff): What kind of comments do you receive from students and other people who eat your food? These are some of the questions I used to interview the students and lunch staff around campus.
The first person I went to and interviewed was Taylee Wright in eighth grade. Her comments were, “School lunch is disgusting. I wish they could cook it better. No I don’t like the appearance or taste of the food.” The next person was JaLynn Beaumont in ninth grade. Her thoughts about school lunch were, “This blob of food they give us,” is how she describes it, “It has no flavor. It’s stuff I want to throw at a wall. It looks gross, but some of their lunches have a little bit of taste.” Ouch, harsh words JaLynn.
The last person I interviewed is on the lunch staff. I thought I would see what the cook thought of their own food. A.J. Johnson said, “Every day the appearance is a surprise. It’s pretty appetizing. I like it. Some comments I get are from mostly students. They only complain about having no salt.”
You would think the person cooking would tell the truth when they describe their own food, and I believe it’s not bad cooking or horrible food, it’s just students being picky about what they eat. So therefore they complain about it as much as possible.
What happened to the lunch rules
The menus students grumbled about here came from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which President Barack Obama signed on December 13, 2010. The standards that followed set minimum amounts of fruit, vegetables and whole grains, capped sodium, sugar and fat, trimmed portion sizes and limited milk to low-fat or fat-free. They were a centerpiece of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign against childhood obesity, which is how her name ended up in the hashtag.
#ThanksMichelleObama took off in September 2012, after students at Wallace High School in Sharon Springs, Kansas, posted a YouTube video complaining about smaller portions. The video passed 1.7 million views, and students around the country used the tag to post photos of trays they did not like.
The rules kept shifting after this story ran. On December 6, 2018, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced a rule that froze the stepped-down sodium limits, allowed 1 percent flavored milk again and required fewer whole grain-rich foods. In January 2026 the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act reversed the restriction on whole milk in school meals.
Changing the menu has a cost that researchers can measure. A 2025 field study across 12 cafeterias on a large university campus (arXiv:2504.02899), covering more than 400,000 food purchases, tested a weekly Meat-Free Day. It cut food-related greenhouse gas emissions on those days by 52.9% and raised fiber intake, but on-campus meal sales fell 16.8% and sugar consumption rose 34.2%. The authors name keeping diners on campus as the main challenge. These were college diners, not middle schoolers, but it is a grown-up version of students here skipping the tray.
Questions people ask
What was #ThanksMichelleObama?
A hashtag students used to post photos of school lunches they disliked. It took off in September 2012 after students at Wallace High School in Sharon Springs, Kansas, posted a YouTube video about smaller portions that drew more than 1.7 million views. The target was the new federal lunch standards tied to Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign.
What did the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act change about school lunch?
Signed on December 13, 2010, the law led to standards with minimums for fruit, vegetables and whole grains, limits on sodium, sugar and fat, and smaller portions. Milk had to be low-fat or fat-free. A rule announced in December 2018 relaxed the sodium and whole grain targets and allowed 1 percent flavored milk.
