Eat Real, a nonprofit focused on improving the quality of food served in schools, has appointed nutrition and technology entrepreneur Laura Paulus to its board of directors, a move the organization says will support its push to expand access to healthier school meals across the United States.
The appointment comes as school food continues to draw national attention from public health advocates, educators, and families concerned about the role cafeterias play in children’s long-term well-being. For millions of students, school breakfast and lunch make up a meaningful share of daily food intake, placing school systems in a powerful position to influence nutrition at scale.
School Cafeterias Remain a Major Nutrition Touchpoint
Eat Real’s work centers on the idea that school meal programs are one of the country’s most important, and often overlooked, nutrition delivery systems. Public schools collectively serve meals at enormous volume, and in many communities, cafeterias are among the most reliable sources of daily nourishment for children.
That reality is especially significant as concerns continue to grow over the prevalence of ultra-processed foods in the diets of U.S. children and adolescents. Nutrition researchers have documented that these products account for a large share of caloric intake among young people. Critics of the current food environment argue that such products are often engineered for convenience, shelf life, and taste, rather than overall nutritional value.
Against that backdrop, Eat Real works with K-12 school food leaders through a certification program designed to encourage more minimally processed meals, stronger sourcing standards, and menus that reflect the communities schools serve. The organization has positioned its model as a practical pathway for districts seeking to improve meal quality while managing the operational realities of large-scale food service.
Paulus Brings Nutrition and Startup Experience
Paulus joins the board with a background that spans both nutrition and entrepreneurship. She studied nutrition at Stanford and has also built experience in the technology sector, a combination Eat Real appears to view as valuable as it looks to scale its programs and sharpen its use of data and systems.
Her experience also includes work tied to school-based nutrition efforts, including initiatives such as Food Detectives, which focus on helping children encounter healthier food options in familiar settings. That approach aligns with a broader philosophy shared by many school food reform advocates: that children are more likely to build better eating habits when nutritious food is woven into everyday life rather than presented only as a lesson in theory.
In announcing the appointment, Eat Real chief executive officer Nora LaTorre said, “We’re thrilled to welcome Laura to Eat Real’s Board of Directors. Her leadership, commitment to children’s health, and belief in the power of real food will help us deepen our impact and accelerate change for school communities nationwide.” The statement signals the organization’s intent to pair mission-driven advocacy with operational growth.
School Food Reform Is Also a Health Equity Issue
Eat Real’s expansion efforts sit within a larger national conversation about health equity and access. When children depend on school meals for a consistent portion of their daily calories, the nutritional quality of those meals becomes more than a cafeteria issue; it becomes part of the public health infrastructure.
Advocates for healthier school food argue that meal standards can influence not only physical health, but also academic readiness, concentration, and long-term wellness. That argument has drawn support from a range of medical and nutrition voices. Physician and author Dr. Mark Hyman has described Eat Real as “an incredible nonprofit that’s helping increase real food access – they focus on schools and so much more. Supporting them now is more critical than ever.” Harvard psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Christopher Palmer has similarly emphasized the connection between nutrition and children’s mental and cognitive health.
Paulus’s addition to the board reflects Eat Real’s broader view that improving school meals requires cross-disciplinary leadership. Nutrition science, district-level implementation, and scalable systems all play a role in shifting what children are served each day. As more attention turns to the impact of ultra-processed foods and diet-related illness, organizations working inside school food systems are likely to remain central to that conversation.
