Food Services ESP — 
Building a Quality Workforce

Food Services: Not "Just Lunch" Anymore

A public school Food Services Department is modern, extensive, technologically complicated, and very, very busy. Child nutrition programs have expanded as school administrators have become aware that poorly nourished children do not learn.

Although the school lunch nutritional pyramid created by the 1946 School Lunch Act still holds, many changes have occurred. The more recently devised "Offer vs. Serve" standard has affected child nutrition, in many cases adversely, and state as well as with federal standards determine compliance what is a nutrition-based meal.

During a hard fought campaign in Louisiana to thwart a bill before the legislature that would give the legal option to all districts in the state to privatize Food Services, the field manager for the Child Nutrition Department stated what should be obvious to everyone:

"These legislators forget where they came from. They all went through the public schools and ate in the cafeteria. They all know that we have to educate the children nutritionally just as much as academically. If you grow up with junk food, that's all you know and that's how you will eat probably for rest of your life. And the rest of your life will be much shorter and sicker if we don't remember soon how important proper nutrition is for kids."

The team approach to child nutrition and delivery of food services has created the need for much greater training and cooperation among Food Services employees. The cultural diversity of students and families also has affected the school cafeteria. Unlike the days of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Food Services employees must focus on more complicated and important aspects of their jobs then ever before. Some of these are:

• Proper food handling, preparation, and storage
• Awareness of hazardous bodily fluids
• Proper use and handling of chemicals
• Student discipline and behavior
• Devising and adapting recipes
• Work environment safety
• Sanitation
• Kitchen math
• Merchandising of food and supplies
• Equipment function and maintenance
• Nutrition education and practice
• Knowledge of regulations and standards
• Student health issues: diabetes, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia
• 21st century student disorders: anorexia, bulimia, obesity
• Nutritional cultural diversity
• Student and staff language barriers
• Computer literacy in order to develop and maintain nutritional databases

To Section 5: The Epidemic of Eating Disorders — The Nutritional Tug-of-War