The volume of chatter rises as children fill the Mililani Ike Elementary School cafeteria to sit down with their trays of spaghetti. Volunteer supervisors walk the aisles, opening a milk carton here and offering a napkin there, sometimes redirecting the more sociable personalities to focus on their meals. It’s lunchtime for the kindergarteners.

This scene has played out for decades: children partaking of a main dish, milk, a baked bun, fruit and salad. It seems some things never change.

But school lunches have seen substantial adjustments in recent years. They now meet new nutritional standards set by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, brought forth by first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! program to combat childhood obesity and hunger. The revamp comprises changes to food portions and a ceiling on grains and meat or meat alternatives.

Last school year, the portion of fruits and vegetables was increased to a combined three-quarters of a cup. This year, recommendations rose to three-quarters to one cup of vegetables and one-half to one cup of fruit, adjusted by grade levels. Those portions equate to half the lunch tray being filled with produce.

Grain portions call for 50 percent whole grains, reflected in such items as whole-wheat buns and pasta, and hapa rice. Milk is either 1 percent or fat-free, and daily meat portions range from one ounce for young students to two ounces for high-schoolers.

These changes pertain to the National School Lunch Program, public- and private-school meal programs assisted by the United States Department of Agriculture.

"There’s been a huge paradigm shift in schools," said Sue Uye­hara, director of Hawaii Child Nutrition Programs, a state agency that administers funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. There’s a focus on "making the school environment a place that builds healthy lifestyle habits to take into adulthood."

Uyehara says efforts must go beyond school meals.

"Cafeteria time is important, but if teachers can focus on these issues in math, science and P.E., we could help students embrace these choices and connect them to the relevance of their everyday lives."

At Mililani Ike, dozens of youngsters had a good go at the spaghetti, and the canned peaches seemed to be popular.

But a pristine spinach salad, mixed with won bok and a light papaya-seed dressing, remained untouched on most trays.

The situation begs the question of waste. But there is a rhyme and reason to this approach.

"It takes at least 10 exposures to a food before a child will taste it or want to taste it," Uye­hara said. "It does take time but change will come."

Landen Takamoto, 7, a second-grader, admits he doesn’t much care for vegetables, but he does enjoy some of the fruit. "I like the pears, pineapple and apples," he said. "At home I like bananas and strawberries."

Landen’s mother, Julie, is a secretary at the school. She says she doesn’t serve many vegetables at home because her children don’t like them. She didn’t grow up eating vegetables, either.

"Vegetables are hard. I’m trying to have them eat more fruit rather than candy," she said of her kids, who include a 10-year-old daughter and a 20-month-old son. "It might work if I serve at home what they serve here, because I want to get them to eat more veggies."

Cafeteria manager Valerie Wata­nabe said meals at home have a great influence on what children will eat at school.

"The parents are a very big influence," she said. "We have parent lunch days, and when parents come to eat with their kids, the kids eat more on their plate. Parents are encouraging."

Dr. Theresa Wee, a Wai­pio Gentry pediatrician for 30 years, says school-based changes are invaluable not just to the children, but their entire families.

"A large percentage of children have breakfast and lunch at school. Sixty percent of their calories are consumed at school, so it’s important that the food is healthy. Lots of kids are on free or reduced-lunch rate, and for these people the learning curve is quick because they’re hungry, they’ve got to eat," she said.

"I see it in my office — teach the kids and they take it home to their families. Kids have a lot of influence on their families. They tell parents to stop smoking or stop drinking soda, and the parents do listen."

At the same time, Wee agrees that it will take the entire community to change children’s eating habits.

"This is the first time in hundreds of years that kids will be more unhealthy than their parents," she noted.

Fast food and "the soda industry spend billions of dollars in ads," she said. "No one of us can compete with that. We must all work on this."

On Maui, Kihei Public Charter School’s Cecelia Camp has figured out how to motivate teens.

"The peer group has influence. By serving healthy food and having some kids eat it, it reinforces everyone to eat what’s served," said Camp, the school’s food-service manager. She feeds middle- and high-school students.

The school is Hawaii’s first recipient of a HealthierUS School Challenge award for schools in the National School Lunch Program.

Because charter schools have latitude to institute their own policies, Camp has benefited from extra funding for meals. This allows Camp to cater many ingredients, vitally important as her kitchen facilities don’t allow her to cook hot meals.

Camp has a nearby Subway baking whole-wheat bread, a pizza parlor making whole-wheat pizza dough and a Mexican restaurant making whole-wheat tortillas. She also serves brown rice.

She occasionally offers french fries and chicken katsu but prides herself on serving whole pieces of meat rather than the processed meats typical of such items as chicken nuggets.

She also provides a daily salad bar.

Roman Deshong, 16, a junior at Kihei Public Charter, says he enjoys the salad bar.

"Choices are key to kids eating healthier," he said. "They’re likely to eat more vegetables if they get to eat the kind they enjoy."

Camp says the salad bar gives students invaluable exposure to produce.

"Some kids didn’t know what honeydew melon is," she said. "One boy had never seen fresh spinach before, and I told him to try it. He came back and said it was delicious, better than lettuce."

_______

OLD AND NEW LUNCH PLATES

An example of elementary school lunches before and after the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act legislation:

BEFORE
>> 4-ounce breaded beef patty with 2 tablespoons ketchup
>> 2-ounce wheat roll
>> 2.4-ounce frozen fruit juice bar
>> 8 ounces 2-percent milk

AFTER
>> 2-ounce oven-baked fish nuggets
>> Whole-wheat roll
>> 1/2-cup mashed potatoes
>> 1/2-cup steamed broccoli
>> 1/2-cup canned peaches (packed in juice)
>> 8 ounces skim milk
>> 1.5 ounces tartar sauce and 5 grams soft margarine

______

SCHOOL-KINE LUNCH FEATURES CHICKEN

Paul Harada, food service director of Lanakila Kitchen, offered a lunch recipe his organization cooks for two  charter schools participating in the National School Lunch Program.

OVEN-FRIED CHICKEN

5 pounds skinless chicken thighs
1/3 cup vegetable oil       
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup instant nonfat dry milk
1/4 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/4 teaspoon ground black or white pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon granulated garlic

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place chicken in bowl and toss with oil. Set aside.
In another bowl, combine flour, dry milk, poultry seasoning, pepper, paprika and granulated garlic. Mix well.

Coat chicken in flour mix. Arrange on ungreased pan.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes or until chicken temperature is 165 degrees and outside is golden brown. Serves 8.

Approximate nutritional information, per serving: 450 calories, 26 g fat,
6 g saturated fat, 145 mg cholesterol, 150 mg sodium, 11 g carbohydrates, no fiber, 1 g sugar, 42 g protein