PRIOR LAKE, Minn. – In the Prior Lake-Savage Area School District, it’s the small portions sizes imposed through Michelle Obama’s Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act that has school officials considering dropping out of the National School Lunch Program.

In Wisconsin’s Germantown School District, it’s the food waste that produced by the federal restrictions that really irks school officials, prompting them to consider the same.

Prior Lake and Germantown are the two most recent school districts to reconsider their relationship with the National School Lunch Program after complications and complaints about federal food restrictions imposed through the first lady’s initiative.

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Students in those districts would join 1.4 million others that have opted out to sidestep the restrictions on calories, sugar, fat, sodium, whole wheat and other nutrition elements tied to the federal lunch funding that school officials contend are leaving students hungry.

The School Nutrition Association, which represents 55,000 food service professionals, is meanwhile pressing congress to provide exemptions from the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act as they move to reauthorize the law this year.

“The school lunch [program was not necessarily made for a heavy-duty athlete whose calorie needs are much higher than what we’re supposed to provide or the maximum that we can provide for a lunch,” Janeen Peterson, food services director for Prior Lake High School, told KSTP.com.

“What our students are asking for, and our parents are asking for, are portion sizes that meet student needs,” she said.

Junior Ryan Wetherell, a student athlete, is among them.

“I could definitely eat some more,” said Wetherall, who eats lunch at 10:30 a.m., but doesn’t get dinner until he gets home from practice at 7 p.m.

And his lunch is federally limited to 850 calories.

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“For me, that’s a little small,” he told the news site.

“Our students want healthy food. We serve healthy food. But it’s not I the portion size that our students really want,” Peterson told KSTP.

Prior Lake expects to lose about $1,000 in federal school lunch funding per day if it opts to ditch the food restrictions, but Peterson said the loss could be worse if it doesn’t.

The federal lunch rules have already convinced enough students to bring their lunch from home that the program is now losing money – as much as $2,000 per day, Peterson said.

“She believes leaving the National School Lunch Program would be the more fiscally responsible decision,” KSTP reports. “Plus, it would keep students happy.”

In Germantown, school officials are also considering opting out of the national lunch program, but for different reasons.

Board member Thomas Barney told Germantown Now that it’s the daily food waste in district elementary schools that is a problem.

Barney’s third grade son recently told him about how the federal requirement that students take a fruit or vegetable, whether they want it or not, is filling his school’s trash cans.

“One of the lunch ladies said to only take as much ketchup and mustard as you need, but take two pieces of fruit and throw it away if you’re not going to eat it, or something along those lines,” Barney told Germantown Now.

“It seems like we’re wasting a lot of food, and yet technically what the lunch lady told my son was not incorrect because we have to make sure the students are served enough fruits and vegetables to meet the federal requirement,” Barney explained. “I understand the idea is for kids to eat healthier lunches, but I think we’re finding there are a lot of kids throwing it away for whatever reason, like maybe they don’t like the taste as much.”

Germantown superintendent Jeff Holmes believes the federal restrictions may be sending students the wrong message.

“We’re in a position with federal and state guidelines where we understand they are trying to be benevolent, but it is having the opposite effect on kids,” said Superintendent Jeff Holmes. “We are finding instead of reinforcing healthy eating habits, kids are starting to believe healthy food doesn’t taste good.”

The option to ditch the National School Lunch Program and federal restrictions would cost Germantown schools about a half-million dollars. Officials plan to discuss the idea and ways to make up the funds at upcoming board meetings, according to the news site.

As schools consider their options the School Nutrition Association will be holding its 43^rd annual Legislative Action Conference in Washington, D.C. this week. About 1,000 school nutrition professionals from across the nation will descend on Capitol Hill to press lawmakers to consider changes to the Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act that would help schools cope with the tight restrictions.

SNA CEO Patricia Montague explained in a recent news release that while the SNA supports calorie caps and more fruits and vegetables for students, “some of USDA’s regulations under the law have unnecessarily increased costs and waste for school meal programs and caused many students to swap healthy school meals for junk food fare.

“SNA is asking Congress to provide schools adequate funding and flexibility, allowing school nutrition professionals to plan creative, appealing menus that will entice students to eat healthy school meals,” Montague said.