In my country, there’s no US style cafeteria (instead it’s a canteen where it’s up to the student if they want to buy anything) some bring their own lunches (home or leftovers) to school, so why do American kids rely on cafeteria food instead of bringing their own?
I mean, is cafeteria food across American schools that bad? It depends on where one resides or if they attend a public or private school. In my case I went to a private (Catholic) high school and the food there is actually good (& cheap when converted to USD).
it’s really terrible from an adult’s perspective. like frozen food dinners but worse, because it’s only for kids. but kids don’t actually know any better. they will actually look forward to some of it, even though as an adult you wouldn’t be able to enjoy it.
it’s not up to the kid though. it’s up to the parent. in the US both parents work, so if mom is too exhausted from work, you’re going to have to buy food.
I looked forward to canned green beans in school lunches. We only had frozen growing up and the canned were just a whole different thing.
Fortunately that hankering didn’t last very long, because canned veggies are so so much worse than frozen in every way.
But we mostly brought our lunches from home, until halfway through high school when we started buying our own food for lunch with after-school-jobs money.