By Ava Dela Pena
A typical freshman attending classes at Hempstead High School must wake early on a Monday for a 7:40 a.m. start, potentially skipping breakfast at home in favor of a more convenient solution: breakfast at school. The menu for the morning?
Cereal, cinnamon rolls, juice and a fruit, which students are required to take at least one of, according to district menus found online.
Depending on their schedules, students might eat lunch as early as 10 a.m., less than two hours into their six-hour day. On the lunch menu are chicken nuggets, hamburgers, nachos and at least one fruit that students must take.
Whether or not they eat the food is a different story.
The Hempstead district does offer a variety of meals. Students might choose a yogurt at breakfast or a Boar’s Head turkey sandwich at lunch just as easily as they might select pizza, macaroni and cheese or tater tots. It is possible for students to make healthy choices at each school-sponsored meal.
Yet, NYU Langone Health’s 2021-22 Community Health Needs and Assets Assessment of Hempstead found that a little over a quarter of children within the village are obese, meaning they have a body mass index (BMI) of greater than 30.
A normal BMI ranges from 18.5 to 25. Overweight is 25 to 30. Obese falls into three categories: Class I, 30 to 35; Class II, 35 to 40; and Class III, above 40.

NYU Langone found that 25% of Hempstead elementary students and 31% of middle and high school students were obese as of 2022. That compared with 16% of elementary students and 15% of middle and high school students county-wide.
“Malnutrition often means inadequate nutrition, but it could also mean overeating,” said Jason Levee, a registered dietitian and founder of the nutrition counseling service Whole Family Health. “If school lunches are giving really large portions of processed foods or foods that are higher in calories, sugar and fat content, and kids are eating a lot of these day after day after day, they could simply be eating too many calories but not getting the diversity of micronutrients [vitamins and minerals] that they also need.”
Young people “need complex carbohydrates to give them energy throughout the course of the day,” Levee continued. “They need foods that have protein to help with growth and concentration. And they need healthy fats which really help with brain function and sustained energy throughout the course of the day.”
Hempstead High alumnus Nsikak Ekong, who graduated from the school in 2016 and is now associate director of NYGEAR UP as Nassau Community College, said he preferred to bring his own lunches while in high school.
“My classmates who would eat [the school lunch]. Some would say it wasn’t enough to carry them throughout the entire day,” Ekong said. “With the block scheduling, you would be in class for over an hour.”
Ekong said some of his classmates had their lunch block scheduled as early as 10 a.m., forcing them to go as many as four hours without a meal or a break for a snack thereafter, or as late as 1 p.m., again forcing them to go four hours without food.
The Hempstead district works with Aramark, a third-party food management company to create the menu, which is overseen by the district’s food service manager, Lee Micelli. Part of his job is to ensure that the menu adheres to state nutritional standards. Those requirements include how many green leafy vegetables or red vegetables are available on the menu, for example.
“We make sure the menu reflects” state standards, Micelli said.
Amy Goldsmith, a registered dietitian with 25 years of experience in her field, said, “Many people do not understand the responsibility that comes with planning school lunches. There are specific guidelines of specific servings and types of food that are necessary and required by the state, a budget comes into play, and many schools know that breakfast and lunch may be the only meals of the day.
“This is why I think parents need to be involved,” Goldsmith said, “so they know what is being served and can talk to their kids about their choices in an appropriate way.”
“My classmates who would eat [the school lunch]. Some would say it wasn’t enough to carry them throughout the entire day.”
Nsikak Kong, Hempstead High School Alumnus
Levee examined the Hempstead district’s middle and high school breakfast and lunch menus for The Advocate and commented that the breakfast lacked protein and micronutrients. “It jumps out to me right away that daily offerings are broadly high-carbohydrate, relatively low-fiber options,” he said. “There aren’t enough satisfying nutrients in these meals to fuel kids’ performance in the classroom throughout the morning.”
As for the lunch menu, he said that while the schools offered a better selection for protein and that inclusion of a vegetable or fruit was commendable, the menu also lacked a diverse range of micronutrients. “The meals also strike me as high-fat and high-calorie compared to their overall nutrient content,” he said.
Goldsmith said that although she finds problems with offering fruit juice instead of encouraging whole fruit and milk and water, she did appreciate the menus providing a range of foods. “It’s also important to offer food that children like so they will, in fact, eat the food and use it for fuel for the day. I think it’s outstanding that daily they offer a chef salad, hamburger, chicken salad and wraps. This can easily be paired with fruit and milk and provide a nutrient-dense meal.”
She also said parents have a role in expanding their children’s palate to encourage healthier eating habits. “It’s important for parents to focus on offering different foods at home and model a variety of foods to expand the palate and assist their child in choosing food that will provide them with their individual needs,” she said.
“School lunches can contribute to [obesity], but a lot of it is funding,” Levee said. “It’s not a level playing field everywhere, unfortunately.”
Public school funding is derived from property taxes and state aid. Lower-income districts tend to receive larger shares of state aid, though not always enough to fulfill a school system’s needs. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Village of Hempstead has a poverty rate of 16% percent compared to Nassau County’s rate of 5.6%. As of 2024, the Hempstead district was the recipient of the National School Lunch Program known as the Community Eligibility Provision, meaning that all students, regardless of income, receive free school meals.
Micelli said district officials would like to do more to offer a greater number and variety of healthy meals, but that would require greater financial resources. “Of course if we had more funding, we’d be able to do more, but as of right now we’re in a good spot,” Micelli said.
“Bottom line, I would rather a kid eat 100% processed food than not eat at all,” Levee said. School meals do “help address some of the food insecurity that exists.”