All students should have a plant-based school lunch option
As the end of another school year approaches, New York’s lawmakers have yet to advance an initiative introduced last school year that would ensure all public school students have access to healthy school meals focused on vegetables, grains, beans and fruits. As both a physician and a parent of three young children who attend public school, I call upon the Legislature to pass this measure (S996 / A3708), which will provide students the option of a plant-based meal.
Establishing healthy eating habits early in life is critical. Physicians regularly see the consequences of a lifetime of unhealthy eating: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and heart disease, diseases which cost New York billions of dollars a year to treat. But alarmingly, these diseases now are being diagnosed in children. In New York, childhood obesity rates are on the rise, increasing significantly from 2019 to 2022. Research shows that children can experience signs of heart disease as young as 8 and that 25% of U.S. children have high cholesterol levels. The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes among U.S. children is also surging, increasing 95% between 2001 and 2017, with the greatest increases in African American and Latino youths.
Plant-based school lunches could help turn around these trends. Decades of research show that a plant-based diet, endorsed by the American Diabetes Association, can help prevent, improve, and even reverse type 2 diabetes. Research also shows that plantbased meals can help children reach a healthy weight, improve heart health and fight type 2 diabetes. Diets high in fruits and veggies have also been found to boost mental health, improve symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and reduce the risk of asthma in children.
But only 7% of U.S. adolescents eat the federally recommended servings of fruit per day, and only 2% consume the daily recommended servings of vegetables per day. More servings in school meals — the only fruits and vegetables available to some children — are direly needed.
The encouraging news is that some New York school districts already offer plant-based op
tions. But students across the state should have these options every day.
A case study conducted at a K-8 school in Washington, D.C., found that plant-based school meals contained triple the amount of fiber found in standard school lunch entrees. The plantbased entrees also had zero cholesterol (compared with an average of 54 milligrams in the standard entrees), more iron, calcium, and vitamins A and C, and less fat and saturated fat.
New York has an opportunity to be a leader in giving children more nutritious school meals. Lawmakers need to make protecting the health of our children a priority by providing plant-based meal options upon request to all students who ask for them in New York public schools.