Only 37 percent of eligible students ate free lunches in San Francisco schools.

Evidence

Francisco Velazquez, a freshman at Balboa High School in San Francisco, was a pretty cool-looking guy, with spiky hair and sunglasses. He also had a gnawingly empty stomach by lunchtime. The smell of oregano-tinged, cheesy, pepperoni-laced pizza and salty, oily French fries in the cafeteria drove him crazy, but he couldn’t afford to pay for those tasty items. He did, however, qualify for the free government-financed meal, which included an entrée of chicken teriyaki. Despite this, he and most of his friends decided not to eat at all during lunch period. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 189