School lunches are one of the major landmines of going back to school.  The efforts of Jamie Oliver and others notwithstanding, school lunches in the US are still — in most cases — a nutritional disaster with too many calories and lots of processed foods.  

Basically, you have two choices: packing healthy lunches at home or teaching your child to make the good choices from among the school lunch options.

Lunches from home certainly give you more control (assuming your child eats what you pack).  You can increase compliance and build decision-making skills by letting kids make some lunch decisions.  For example, a child could decide between a half cup of raw vegetables and a small thermos of homemade vegetable soup, between a whole grain pita with chunks of chicken breat or a mini wheat bagel with a slice of turkey.  You can make lists of available options (grains, veggies, fruits, proteins, drinks, etc.) and let each child choose one from each category. Yes, the combinations might be strange, but if they eat it, does it matter?

Things to avoid:

• The vast majority of juice boxzes.  Most of them have almost as much sugar as a can of soda.  Same goes for sports drinks.
• Things that arehard to eat or require utensils.
• The evil horrible trash that are lunchables.  Seriously, look at the calories, sodium, fat, and cholestoerol on those.  You might as well send your kid to school with a salt shaker and a tub of lard for lunch.

If your child does want to eat the school lunches, it's important to teach her to make good choices.  Many school menus now list the calories for each option. That's a start.  Teach your child to make the good choices, focusing on lots of vegetables and whole grains.  Here are some basics:

• Look for options that use the least processed foods.  Especially stay away from the evil triumvirate: pizza, chicken nuggets, and fries.
• A salad bar is a good option if it isn't full of mayo based prepared foods purchased by the tub.  Teach your child to choose veggies instead of cheese, bacon, and criutons, and to pick vinegar and oil (or at least a vinaigrette) as the dressing of choice. 
• Always choose white milk.  The sugar content in chocolate and strawberry milk is appalling and it's heavily marketed at most schools.
• Get involved at your school to find out how decisions are made about cafeteria options.  Things can change if enough parents demand it.