The USDA on Friday proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars and salt.
Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack also seeks to significantly decrease sodium in the meals served to the nation’s schoolkids by 2029, while making the rules for foods made with whole grains more flexible, according to the Associated Press.
If the proposal is implemented, the new standards will limit sugar and sodium intake while increasing the number of whole grains in meals eaten by more than 30 million students each day during the school year.
“We’re proposing these changes now to build in plenty of time for planning and collaboration with all of our school nutrition partners,” stated Stacy Dean, deputy undersecretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, reports NPR.org. “Implementing the final school nutrition standards will require the support of schools and state agencies.”
This is the outline for the new school meal standards:
- Limiting added sugars in certain high-sugar products and, later, across the weekly menu;
- Allowing flavored milk in certain circumstances and with reasonable limits on added sugars;
- Incrementally reducing weekly sodium limits over many school years;
- Emphasizing products that are primarily whole grain, with the option for occasional non-whole grain products;
- Encourage domestically produced foods
“We know that there is a health care imperative, we know that there’s an equity imperative, we know that there’s an educational achievement imperative, and I believe there’s an economic competitiveness imperative wrapped up in these rules,” Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, said in a call with reporters on Friday.
Childhood o0besity in the United States
Obesity currently affects four out of 10 Americans, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While weight and overall health aren’t always connected, obesity is often considered a cause of multiple chronic medical conditions, including type 2 diabetes, some forms of cancer and heart disease.
CDC data suggests that 19.4 percent of adolescents and children in the U.S. – 14.7 million individuals – have obesity. More specifically, 12.7% of 2- to 5-year-olds, 20.7% of 6- to 11-year-olds, and 22.2% of 12- to 19-year-olds in the U.S. have obesity, reports the CDC.
Nutrition advocates argue that school meals are often some of the healthiest that many students have access to because of the nutrition requirements behind every dish served — impacting not only health but educational outcomes as well.
Last year, the USDA released a report that showed added sugars in school meals far exceed the Dietary Guidelines for Americans standard that no more than 10 percent of calories from meals should come from added sugars.
Lauren Au, a professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis, commended the proposal for phasing in changes even if they do not immediately meet all dietary guidelines.
“This proposed standard is keeping into consideration the feasibility of carrying out something that is so big,” she said. “But from a nutrition standpoint, the added sugars and sodium are some of the biggest concerns within school meals.”
