It’s been over 13 months since I last wrote about the Child Nutrition Reauthorization, which is legislation that sets standards for all meals served in school and funds programs like the National School Lunch Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
In that 13 months a battle in Congress began about a number of the changes to nutrition standards for school meals. The new bill increases the amount of fruits and vegetables served, eliminates any fried vegetables, and reduces the number of starchy vegetables that can be served in any school receiving federal funding. Unfortunately, Congress block several provisions and decided that pizza is a vegetable.
On Wednesday, the First Lady revealed the new regulations as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act that align the nutrition of school meals to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Schools are now required to:
- Offer fruits and vegetables as two separate meal components
- Offer fruit daily at breakfast and lunch
- Offer vegetables daily at lunch
- Require students to select a fruit or a vegetable as part of the reimbursable meal
- Offer whole grains: half of the grains will be whole grain-rich upon implementation of the rule and all grains will be whole-grain two years post implementation
- Offer a daily meat/meat alternate at breakfast
- Offer fluid milk that is fat-free (unflavored and flavored) and low-fat (unflavored only)
- Offer meals that meet specific calorie ranges for each age/grade group
- Reduce the sodium content of meals gradually over a 10-year perio
- Prepare meals using food products or ingredients that contain zero grams of trans fat per serving
These standards, which mark the first such changes to school meals in more than 15 years, go into effect July 1st and will be phased in over a three-year period. The regulations will improve the food nearly 32 million children eat every day.
Just looking at the before and after comparison of meals shows how big of an improvement this is. This is a huge step forward for nutrition policy and the attempt to improve the health of all kids.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
One step at a time, right? I’m so glad to hear this step in the right direction!
Its not perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than nothing! Finally someone is realizing that just because it’s food doesn’t mean we should be eating it (or feeding it to our nation’s children!)
I don’t know why I even worry we won’t get along.
This is my BIGGEST issue. In fact, it’s one of the only “political” things I care about. Having witness firsthand what kids eat and what their choices are (and no, it’s not always the school’s fault), it is something I try to follow closely. I want to support healthy kids and nutrition education in any way I can…even if it is just being an example to my students, and showing them the types of foods I choose to eat for lunch!
You brought up a really good point that I think a lot of people misunderstand: it really isn’t the schools fault. A lot of schools have shut down their kitchens and outsourced to a central location to save on costs. This often leads to packaged and processed foods. I know a lot of schools are trying to turn this around and figure out how to deliver healthy, home cooked meals to schools, I just hope more will follow!
This is so refreshing to hear! As a student, I used to buy cafeteria lunches in elementary school and I don’t want to even think about what I really ate and happy that it was only a few years before I began bringing my own lunch from home… I’ll never forget when one student found a plastic knife in his hot dog!
A couple of months ago I heard that the regulations were getting worse- they were considering tomato sauce on pizza a serving of veggies?!
Every little bit counts! It’s much better than the burgers and fries they sold at my high school.
It’s good that changes are happening little by little~! I worked at a school with my student who had autism, and even the kids in his class weren’t happy with their meals b/c they didn’t have much quality/nutrition…and they were in 4th grade!