
Newton Independent
First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today unveiled new standards for school meals designed to improve the health and nutrition of nearly 32 million kids across the country that participate in school meal programs every school day.
The new meal requirements raise the standards for the first time in more than 15 years and are a key component of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was promoted by the First Lady as part of her "Let's Move!" campaign and signed into law by President Obama.
"As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat and ensure they have a reasonably balanced diet," the First Lady said in announcing the new standards. "And when we're putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria. When we send our kids to school, we expect that they won't be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home. We want the food they get a tschool to be the same kind of food we would serve at our own kitchen tables."
The final standards make practical changes to school meal menus, including:
- ensuring students are offered both fruits and vegetables every day of the week
- substantially increasing offerings of whole grain rich foods
- offering only fat-free or low-fat milk varieties
- limiting calories based on the age of children being served to ensure proper portion size
- increasing the focus on reducing the amounts of saturated fat, trans fat and sodium.
"Improving the quality of the school meals is a critical step in building a healthy future for our kids," Vilsack said. "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."
The new standards are expected to cost $3.2 billion over the next five years - less than half of the estimated cost of the proposed rule and are just one of five components of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act now implemented or under development. In addition to the updated meal standards, improvements to come include:
- The ability to take nutrition standards beyond the lunch line to foods and beverages sold in vending machines on school campuses
- increased funding for schools - an additional 6 cents a meal, the first real increase in 30 years
- common-sense pricing standards for schools to ensure that revenues from non-federal sources keep pace with the federal commitment to healthy school meals
- technical assistance and training to ensure compliance
The final standards released today also provide more time for schools to implement the changes, which will be phased in over a three-year period, starting in the 2012-13 school year.
A comparison chart of the current and new regulatory requirements by food group can be viewed here.
Coincidentally, legislation was entered in the Iowa House of Representatives on Tuesday calling for the establishment of the Iowa Hot Lunch Challenge Campaign, an effort to promote healthy eating, reducing childhood obesity and hunger and making the state's hot lunch and nutrition programs the best in the nation.
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