The USDA announced new nutrition standards for school meals, which would limit sugar and sodium intake while increasing the amount of whole grains in meals eaten by more than 30 million students each day during the school year.
released on Friday by Healthy Eating Research, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, finds that aligning the standards with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans would provide benefits such as increased student participation in the meal programs, reduced food insecurity and improved academic outcomes.
The National Milk Producers Federation and the International Dairy Foods Association voiced support for the new proposed updates, particularly the plan to keep low-fat flavored milk in cafeterias.And the School Nutrition Association is calling on the department to go back to enforcing the current standards, instead of implementing new rules.
Many of the current school meal standards, originally put in place during the Obama administration, were waived during the pandemic in order to give schools flexibility with what they could serve as they faced supply-chain crunches. "As schools nationwide contend with persistent supply chain, labor and financial challenges, school meal programs are struggling to successfully maintain current standards and need support, not additional, unrealistic requirements," SNA President Lori Adkins said in a statement, adding that their 2023 survey of school meal directors found 88% are still facing challenges finding whole-grain, low-sodium and low-fat options to meet the current standards.Copyright 2023 NPR.
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