School lunch nutrition is of particular importance currently due to the emerging childhood obesity epidemic. Using the definition of obesity as having a BMI-for-age of greater than the 85th percentile, approximately 31.7% of American children qualify as being overweight, whereas 16.9% of US children aged 2 through 19 years meet criteria for being obese (with BMI-for-age greater than the 95th percentile). Unfortunately, this epidemic is worsening with an alarming pace — in school-age children, the rate of obesity has increased since 1980 from 6.5% to 19.6%. Given this growing problem facing the nation’s youth, school lunch nutrition will play a vital role in halting and potentially reversing this concerning trend.