More than one-third of kids in America are obese or overweight. In 2013, the National School Lunch Program, a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools, served 5.1 billion lunches, Bloomberg reports. The quality of these lunches must somehow correlate to the health of America’s youth, considering more than 32 million children are served NSLP every day.
Parents could model better eating habits and stock their crispers with fresh fruit and vegetables, but a viable starter solution might begin at lunchtime. Sweetgreen, a healthy quick-serve restaurant that values local and organic ingredients, clarified disparity between American student lunches and those of other countries by photographing typical school lunches from around the world. The visuals are eye-opening.
A representative for the company told The Huffington Post that to create these mock meals, Sweetgreen evaluated different government standards for school lunch programs and compared the data to real photos from students who had posted on several social media platforms. Because school lunches can vary by region, it’s important to note that the images below aren’t exact representations of a country’s school lunch, but offer a resemblance.
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Spain
Sautéed shrimp over brown rice and vegetables, gazpacho, fresh peppers, bread and an orange.
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