Social Justice in the School Cafeteria

Today's reflection will be brief; I'm taking a short break from working out my sermon for tomorrow.

But this article in the New York Times is an interesting and challenging snapshot of the struggle kids have to fit in when their families are struggling to make it.

In general, I think those a la carte foods tend to be pretty bad nutritionally, and the problem is only compounded by the way they serve as a marker of social status as well. Although, my memories of school lunches are that they were neither terribly appealing nor impressively good for you. Still, they do have some sort of nutritional standards, and the idea that there is such a stigma to free lunch that kids would rather go hungry, is disturbing.