When I went to high school, everyone bought lunch and these days it seems that they still do. However, there are teens who prefer to pack. I had one of those. I don't know if he needed a taste of home or if the school lunch wasn't big enough, but he packed almost everyday and he ate it. Now my middle daughter used to never eat the school lunch so I asked her to start packing as I hated wasting the money. Turns out, she preferred it. School lunches aren't all that, all the time - except when it's pizza day.
Does your teen get the school lunch? Are there days when he/she prefers to take in lunch or would he/she never be caught with a brown bag? Share your experiences in the comments area.
More: How To Pack a Lunch for Teens | How to Get Your Teen to Eat Breakfast
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I guess school lunch is always, “all that” at my son’s high school. They have the choice of pizza every day or a regular lunch or a salad bar w/fruit. Given those options….I am sure he will have pizza every day!
My oldest is in high school and she buys. Some days she doesn’t have much of an appetite, and she shares with friends if they forget their money. On days she’s hungry, she eats her lunch, then eats whatever her friends didn’t want (usually their fruit or vegetable servings).
I spent 9 years at a high school with four in a row attending. It would kill you to know that more than 1/2 of the students attending do not eat lunch at school and do not pack a lunch either. They either don’t have the money to eat, their parents don’t give them money to eat, they don’t pack a lunch or their parents don’t pack a lunch for them. Take your pick!! However there are those teens who have money but prefer to spend it on something other than lunch. I suffered many afternoons watching teens pick from other teens lunch plate/box/bag or sit and have nothing at all. I wish my school tax money would be spent on lunch for all children rather than on football uniforms and equipment!!
Well, if you have choices like a salad bar for your child, you are luckier than those in my school district. I looked at my daughter’s choices for the month. About half the entrees are fried, 28% of the sides were fried, 19% of the fruit is fresh (all apples all the time), no whole grains, one possibly two servings of greens (lettuce? maybe on the taco?).
We just started enjoying fresh produce from our garden….
My 7th grade daughter, has almost always packed a lunch. The choices were pretty awful in elementary school and the lines to purchase lunches in Jr. high are so long they have 5-10 minutes to inhale their lunch. The choices are still pretty bleak. School districts need to invest in a real nutritionist/chef, not only to give healthy choices but healthier remakes of fries and chicken strips,pizza, and burritos. Throwing in salad bar doesn’t cut it.
I have one daughter that buys every day at the high school and one daughter that packs every day at the high school. The one that packs says the food is awful. The one that buys isn’t a big eater and I don’t think she eats much anyway. I’m still trying to figure out how they can serve food like that in the schools. It looks awful.
Im only a highschool student but my school has amazing lunches
you can choose between, burgers, chicken burgers, nuggets sandwhiches wraps, then a special every day, subs pizza’s nothing is deep fired. we have been on the news alot for healthy lunch I usually get a wrap! and a milk
I was comment #1. My son is over weight and at home I am very strict about not having junk in the house. He always loses some weight over the summer and gains it back and then some when school starts again. The school alows me to “block” him from getting more than the regular lunch on the money I put in his account. However, he uses his chore money to buy extras and they don’t stop that.
Okay, I’m a student, and my school is terrible. We don’t have a menu, all the cafeteria sells is straight fries, curly fries, chips, pizza (sometimes), drinks and cookies/candy. Occasionally they will have something that resembles real food, but it’s usually overpriced. Also, the lunch ladies don’t speak good english, so we don’t know what the food is.
Because of this, most kids go to the pizza place or chinese place across the road. Or we bring lunches. We don’t get teased for bringing a lunch, but we do laugh at the lunch itself if it looks gross. I myself don’t take a lunch purely for the fact that I’d prefer to sleep in, and I know that my friends always share aspects of their lunches. On the days that I do take my lunch, I rarely eat it. You get sick of the same thing over and over.
i just started high school ( im english, so im 12) and i take a packed lunch everyday, as do all of my friends. We always eat it because were a very hungry lot. One thing is i NEVER see any older kids eat. From about Year 9 ( 13 – 14 yr olds) they seem to be robots!!!!
My Daughter is in High School. The School lunches was just a little too much with the bus tickets,extra ciricular expenses and everything else. So I have a Younger Daughter and she packs so i asked my teen to pack. She refuses to be caught with a packed lunch so she just doesn’t eat until she gets home. Her Choice not mine
My child is always eating junk food, and I am getting really sick of it. I buy fruit and vegetables, but he asks for more fruit rollups, fruit gushers, and a lot of other junk.
take away all the junk and take away their allowance so that they cant buy
Here’s a real high school student who can type proper english!
My school offers no set lunch, but salads and sandwiches and the like for sale. It’s relatively healthy, and tastes good.
I pack a sandwich or something usually, becuase the queue at the canteen is long. Some students have family members that make them lunch.
Never seen anyone being picked on for what they eat for lunch. It’s pretty funny when ‘ultra cool teenagers’ are walking around with tupperware containers of salad. Most students can afford some form of food, but there’s no system making sure students eat. Ehh well.
i live in yuma colorado, we only have one vending machine that turns off when it comes time for lunch. It only provides us with gatorade, coffee, juices, and if were lucky TEA
I start high school this year, and according to some current students at the school, lunch there is pretty good. There is a regular line, as well as a “specialty line,” offering different types of food, Italian, Mexican, etc. In the Mexican inspired line, there are offerings such as make your own fajitas. In the Italian line, there is, according to a current student “amazing” garlic bread. Therefore, I will probably buy lunch most of the time, and have no problem eating it!
i am a teenager an my school lunch is just grease with a little pizza on the side.
I am in High school now. I dont eat my lunch at school beacuse the cafeteria is too full and I dont like walking aroun when i eat and i dont like eating infront of people/ people watching mme eat. I eat after school when i get home. If i did eat lunch then i would pack it with healthy food. The food the school sells is just greese- I tried a piece of my friends pizza once and it literally tasted like greese. I don’t get how anyone likes that stuff! The school soup is healthy though and its the only thing that is good! I eat healthy, junk food almost never and i am and have always been underweight.
Our school is in the city and we have literally plazas and stores across the street along with a pretty big selection of school luches, plus most kids have a bus pass and they can just bus it one intersection down for even more choices (including an all you can eat buffet!)
Oh goodness, where do I start?
Literally across the street each way, we have tim hortons, subway, 2 restaurants, 2 convenience stores, and a bagel shop. In school we have two cafs, a “fast foods” and the normal caf, and to be honest nobody even eats in the cafeterias because they’re so crowded.
The fast foods caf has fries, burgers, slushies, sodas, chicken nuggets and stuff like that.
The regular cafeteria changes every day, I’ve never tried anything from there but i’ve seen spaghetti, salads, mashed potatoes, tacos, and things like that. They’ve also always got mini salads and fruit parfaits and stuff like that.
And in case all that wasn’t enough, taking the bus 5 minutes down the street will land you in an outdoor shopping mall, and I won’t even begin to tell you everything there.
To make it all better, we get an hour and a half for lunchtime but despite all these choices, and comparing to some other schools they’re pretty great, me and my friends and most kids I know hardly ever eat lunch.
At our school, you have the option to go to the library during lunch. I find a lot of classmates that forgot to study/do homework use their lunch period in the library. Which is telling us they don’t each lunch every day. But on the days I do eat lunch I always bring one, because frankly kids get the three same things: Cookie, fries, and a drink. The “Veggies” look like green masked potatoes in a cup, and the “fruit” is drenched in sugary syrup.