USDA Revises School Lunch Standards
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued a final rule updating
the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs “to align them
with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.” Effective March 26, 2012, the rule
seeks to reduce childhood obesity by requiring schools to (i) “increase the
availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free and low-fat fluid
milk in school meals”; (ii) “reduce the levels of sodium, saturated fat and trans
fat in meals”; and (iii) “meet the nutrition needs of school children within their
calorie requirements.”
According to USDA, the new standards reflect the recommendations of an Institute of Medicine expert panel as well as 132,000 public comments. Estimated to add $3.2 billion to school meal costs over five years, the final rule only partially implements the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act (HHFKA) of 2010, which also includes a mandate to set nutritional standards for foods and beverages sold in vending machines and other venues on school campuses. Nevertheless, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack praised the new school meal standards as “a critical step” in HHKFA’s mission to improve childhood nutrition. “When it comes to our children, we must do everything possible to provide them the nutrition they need to be healthy, active and ready to face the future—today we take an important step towards that goal,” he said. See USDA Press Release, January 25, 2012.
Meanwhile, a recent study has questioned the alleged association between childhood weight gain and the sale of soft drinks, candy bars, chips, and other competitive foods in schools. Jennifer Van Hook and Claire Altman, “Competitive Food Sales in Schools and Childhood Obesity: A Longitudinal Study,” Sociology of Education, January 2012. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Pennsylvania State University researchers reportedly concluded that “children’s weight gain between fifth and eighth grades was not associated with the introduction or the duration of exposure to competitive food sales in middle school.”
Noting that these findings “did not vary significantly by gender, race/ethnicity,
or family socioeconomic status,” the study’s authors speculated that not only
are dietary patterns “firmly established before adolescence,” but that “middle
school environments may dampen the effects of competitive food sales
because they so highly structure children’s time and eating opportunities.”
As a result, they concluded that the study despite its limitations “may prove
disappointing for those seeking to design school-based interventions to
improve children’s health.”
