Try to show them post USSR school lunches to show that worse is indeed exist somewhere.
If seriously, that's some depressing shit, thanks for sharing.
My parents actually showed me their Soviet school lunches (and breakfasts) to illustrate what a "good" diet for kids was. And to be honest, it wasn't that bad, probably even better than our lunches in France, and certainly miles ahead of lunches in the US.
I've seen a couple of people say that school lunches in France are better than the States, and this is partially accurate, but there is still a long way to go. For context, I went to a private school that made kids study "food pyramid charts" and caloric intake, but nonetheless, our school lunches were mostly fried meat / fish, and countless variants of potatoes with spinach once a week. Mayonnaise and ketchup were a free-for-all, and while you did have fruits offered as dessert, you also could replace them with sugary ones like tiramisus, floating islands or pannacottas, which obviously most of the kids did.
Sodas and vending machine for snacks are forbidden in French schools, but you had for instance fruit syrup to dilute in water, and those bags of apple compote that are 3/4 sugar on offer.
In the early 2000s, there was an organisation created in France called "Fight against child obesity" that wanted to promote healthy school lunches for kids. They did an experiment in a small town that had an obesity problem, where they fed kids only healthy meals for a couple of years while weighting them periodically, and surprise - surprise - children went back to a healthy weight.
Following that initiative, they wanted to implement an actually healthy school lunch program on a national level, but that's when the sugar lobby chimed in.
A study published by the Crédoc (the French center for studies of life habits), and sponsored by Coke and Nestlé of course, claimed that there were no links between sugary foods & child obesity, and that people "shouldn't stigmatise food like that, because food is a French tradition and art". Claims that "children should drink more water" simply got cut to "children should drink more", implying sodas and syrups were fair game.
Since then, it pretty much went downhill. The trend went from questioning the food and the sugary breakfast cereals the kids eat to "kids should work out more", and while working out and playing sports is all well and good, the main factor of childhood obesity still seems to be sugary foods. Making a fatty run a lap once per week might help him drop a couple of kilos, but it certainly won't be beneficial for his health or help him in the long run if he keeps stuffing himself with sugar and grease.
Anyways, point is - French lunches are better than the US ones, not that it's very hard to accomplish, but they're still far from perfect, and the sugar lobby is just as strong in the EU as in the US. Amusingly enough, the only country I've seen that actually feeds healthy meals to kids is Japan.
I mean I still drink more water than I probably NEED to because why not? Water good.
