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Subscribe to RSSUnder new USDA rules school lunches will become healthier. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports.
Millions of schoolchildren in the United States will see more fruit and vegetables and less fat on their lunch plates under new U.S. Department of Agriculture standards unveiled Wednesday aimed at improving child nutrition and reducing childhood obesity.
"Improving the quality of the school meals is a critical step in building a healthy future for our kids," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "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 changes mark the first overhaul of the school lunch program in more than 15 years and will affect the nearly 32 million children who eat at school. The new regulations will be phased in over the next three years, starting in the fall.
“We strongly support the regulations,” said Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokeswoman for the Maryland-based School Nutrition Association. “The new nutrition standards for school meals are great news for kids.”
Under the new regulations, schools will be required to offer fruits and vegetables every day, increase the amount of whole-grain foods and reduce the sodium and fats in the foods served. Schools will also be required to offer only fat-free or low-fat milk. In addition, the menus will pay attention to portion sizes to make sure children receive calories appropriate to their age, according to Kevin Concannon, USDA under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services.
Read more: Trans fat ban proposed for Colorado schools
The new requirements are part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act signed into law last year by President Barack Obama and championed by the First Lady Michelle Obama as part of her Let's Move! campaign.
First lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announce new nutrition standards for school meals. NBC's Erika Edwards reports.
"As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat, and ensure they have a reasonably balanced diet," said Michelle Obama. "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.
Read more: Blogger eats school lunch every day
Statistics show that about 17 percent of U.S. children and teenagers are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But whether the kids will choose to eat the new, healthier foods remains to be seen. The new menus won't entirely eliminate favorite food choices among kids, like pizza and french fries, but they will provide alternatives. For example, instead of cheese pizza, students will receive whole wheat cheese pizza. Rather than tater tots, students will get baked sweet potato fries.
"We know if it’s not delicious, kids aren’t going to eat it," said White House Chef Sam Kass. But he added that thousands of schools have already implemented many of the required changes and their chefs are making progress in designing appealing menus. "We're working very hard on that," he said.
Wendy Weyer, director of nutrition services for Seattle Public Schools, said her district is already complying with many of the new USDA standards, and taking other steps, such as having partnerships with local farmers and planting school gardens. "Seattle has been very progressive with changing the way we offer meals, offering fruits and vegetables every day, as well as whole grain-rich foods," she said.
Weyer said the biggest challenge will be reducing sodium content, "while keeping the meals palatable for our students."
Pratt-Heavner said parents will play an important role in supporting the new standards. ”We all have to work to get the kids to make these healthier choices,” she said. “Students are more apt to pick up a fruit or vegetable in the lunch line if they have been introduced to those foods at home.”
To support the changes, schools will receive another 6 cents per meal in federal funding, and the overall cost of implementing the new requirements is projected at $3.2 billion. To help minimize costs, schools will also have more flexibility in designing the school lunch line to reduce waste, Concannon said. Students, for example, will be allowed to pick and choose more items as they move through the line, rather than getting a plate served to them.
Weyer said the Seattle school district still needs to determine how far the additional money will go to cover the new requirements.
"It's not going to cover all the cost, but it's definitely going to help," Pratt-Heavner said.
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I substitute teach at several schools and the times I have duty in the cafeteria I see waste containers full of "healthy food" students won't eat. I would be all for giving them only what they want to eat to avoid wasting food but that isn't an option as then the school would be accused of not providing a healthy meal.
What children will eat at school begins with what they will eat at home.
When I was a kid the cooks in school COOKED!!!!!!! I graduated high school the year Reagan came to office; there were no more cooks at school, just packaged lunch brought in from some company. The food I had in school was not always that great but it filled us up and it was REAL. Thank you Ronnie for making a stupid mistake just for money.
Good in theory. Not sure it will actually work in certain schools. As a teacher in a rural community I can tell you that if the kid doesn't like what they serve for lunch they throw it out instead of trying to eat it. A lot of food choices have to start at home too. Kids are used to processed, sugary foods and do not like changes. Parents want what is easiest. Sad but true. My nephew LOVES broccoli in any form but hesitates to eat it at school because the kids make fun of him for it. Our culture and views on food have to change before the kids will. Everyday I see children refusing to eat what is on their plate. They'd rather go hungry I guess.
Kids are actually quite adaptable. While they may choose junk over healthy if both options are available, they will choose healthy if that is the only option available. They may throw out healthy for the first few days, but once they see they do not have a choice, they will start eating what is offered to them. Even the friends who tease the broccoli-eater will start eating broccoli.
Kids are NOT getting fat from school lunches for crying out loud.
Sorry to bust your bubble..but most if not all of that new nutritious food will be tossed into the trash...you can imagine the original food was probably bad anyway most school lunches are.. but the best tasting stuff is usually the ones they claim is bad for you..In other words you think the old lunch was bad now taste the new so called nutritious lunches yukkk Barrrf on a plastic Frisbee...Kids being kids will not eat yucky crappy grainy nutritious gunk no matter how much you preach to them....you mite as well just give them some wheat bread and a jar of peanut butter...it will probably taste better and cost less....
"Kids being kids will not eat yucky crappy grainy nutritious gunk no matter how much you preach to them" - and whose fault is that, teaching kids to eat junk food? It is surprising how lazy adults who do not teach their own kids to eat healthy will try to defend their actions.
My son has one of the best cafeteria menus I have ever seen. It's not all fatty foods like hot dogs, and fries or pizza, they actually have a variety of things that the kids can choose from. One day they have turkey vegetable soup, or hot ham and cheese, and then a couple of days later they'll have pizza offered, or hamburgers and oven fries. Plus they can choose to have juice or milk which helps a lot. Some kids don't like milk, or can't have it. The people here actually think about what they are giving the kids, and not just giving them the crap they want. My son is on the free lunch program but he also has nutritional meals at home.
Marge didn't you know the first Lady has people to help her pick out stuff that she wears? But whoever it is has no taste of their own. The First Lady isn't tiny by any means, and she goes about and talks about Child Obese? That's like the kettle calling the pot black isn't it?
What's that adage: You can lead a horse to water.....You really think most of these kids are going to eat this "healthy" stuff? Do you think kids are fat and lazy because of the lunches served at school? Do you think that they will become healthier even if they eat one healthy meal, while away from school they eat junk food? How about this: not allowing their EBT Mamma's to buy soda, chips, frozen pizzas and other unhealthy crap when they go to Wal-Mart to shop? How about coming to the realization that the school is not going to change the eating habits of these kids, the parent(s) will by serving them healthy food. And before you ignorant *ss folks cry out that the ghetto stores don't sell produce and healthy food, shut the *ell up because that is an outright lie!!!!
I find it disturbing that only low fat or no fat dairy will be allowed....
Item: Children do need a certain amount of cholesterol for brain and neurological development and the development of hormones.
Item: Recent nutritional research would seem to indicate that while dairy has cholesterol, it fosters the levels of good cholesterol not the negative variety
Item: Dairy products are still probably the greatest source of calcium, vitamin D in the modern diet and bone growth and development will not occur without calcium and vitamin D-funny thing about vitamin D and Vitamin A, is that they are fat soluable, which means skim milk fortified with vitamins D and A is worthless because the body cannot use the vitamins without the fats........and, if you don't have the D and A, you won't assimilate the calcium properly either.
Item: Fat free, lowfat, and full fat milk products do not taste the same, nor do they cook the same. What is added to fat free and lowfat products to make up for consistency lost in full fat products is often artificial (trans fat comes to mind) and often a form of sugar or a filler that metabolizes into carbohydrate (also becoming sugar)
Item: foods with fat are more satisfying meaning that you eat less and are satisfied longer before looking for something else to eat. Fewer calories taken in, fewer snacks, smaller portions
Somebody once told me that anyone, literally anyone, could sit down and eat a pound bag of potato chips -(or baked sunchips), but very few people could actually consume a pound of meat of any kind in one sitting....Try it sometime-they are right on, and those who eat meats and fats actually consume less calories overall, less food volume and snack less. I think we were better off with the four basic food groups and the goal to have a bit of something from each of the four every day.
Nice idea, but I'm pretty sure it will lead to a lot more food in the garbage instead of in the kids. Unless they are really hungry, kids eat only what they like. The real challange is to make what they like healthier.
The keyword is: unless they are really hungry. They may throw out healthy food for the first few days, but will start eating it once they are really hungry.
"..."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..."
I concur, more ketchup for everyone.
And a big "Thank you" from the farm lobby to the USDA and Obama! More campaign money coming to you! Kids WILL lose weight with this - because they won't eat the Michelle Obama imposed lunches! Sleeping in class at 1PM from lack of energy? Not USDA's problem!
If you want real results, require an hour of PE everyday, as when I was in high school. Give an hour of play/recess everyday to elementary school kids. What this culture needs to relearn is play! Far fewer antidepressants and ADHD drugs will be needed!
To think that the GOP wants to do away with the USDA is scary. Ron Paul thinks the schools will choose to provide healthy lunches for our school-aged children on their own. Sawdust is a vegetable? In his mind and nowhere else he thinks the Corporations of the World will just choose not to pollute everything in the World. In the GOP worldview multi-national corporations could set up shop in the US of A choose to pollute theheck out of everything and it would not be in the US government's authority to stop them. Face it Lincoln saved the Republic. The South lost the Civil War and the States have to comply with the federal regulations thankfully. It is analogous to the argument that the GOP puts forth that if Warren Buffet wants to pay more in taxes voluntarily then he can(and he does). If the Corporations were going to "police" themselves they already would and they don't because they wouldn't if the government didn't make them comply with necessary regulations.
I understand the GOP backlash saying that parents should determine the diet of their child, but as a parent, I have to send a lunch with my child, in order to know that she isn't eating pure fat and sugar and salt.
A school lunch is sometimes the only meal some kids get. It's hard to function on the food groups that big business wants the kids to eat--The french fry group, the twinkie group, the lard group.......By comparison, pizza almost sounds like a vegetable.
And---please remember that many kids get free or reduced meals---paid for by the government.
Someone posted that it's non of the governments business. If the school systems insist on providing breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner, then they should be held accountable for providing healthy, nutritious live food to our children. The schools are TEACHING our children, and teaching does not just happen only in the classroom, BUT in the cafeteria, on the playground..everywhere. we should be teaching our kids how to cook, how to select GOOD food. to not drink soda's, but water, eat whole grains, dark green veggies and Organic Organic Organic. Not the crappy food that's advertised on TV. or that is served in most all of the lunch rooms in the country.
The Government is supposed to be US -the people. So yes, we should get involved and do something about this very critical problem of how we are feeding ourselves. We are annihilating our own species, period. and people are becoming more lazy and spoiled by convenience. People continue to spend their hard earned dollars on CHEAP food that's not even food, to save a buck - using the stupid dollar menu at the fast food drive thru. AND THEN turn right around and spend tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on medical care because they are fat and sick and malnourished.
PARENTS, its your (our) job to take control of this situation. Oh, so johnny doesn't like broccoli, hmmmm. who's fault is that? it's usually the parents fault because THEY don't like broccoli. or they gave little johnny junk food, processed food, food filled with sugar and flavors from the get go. Wake up People. Or just to continue to annihilate our species by poisoning your bodies and our world.
Educate yourselves. Inform yourselves. Give a damn and read read read about what's really going on with our food. (let's not even get into our water and air). And then after you actually take the time to inform yourselves, regroup and spend a little more effort on implementing what you know is right. and turn off the TV.
Susan, you're 100% right. There was one highschool girl who blogged that she was taking a home economics course in which the "teacher" required her to taste test huge chocolate chip cookies and other junk foods to get a grade in the class! Talk about an instructor who needs to be fired!!
Don't like it ? then pack their lunch.......
Improving the diets of our kids might actually help prevent premature puberty:
Starson, Your're right, studies are being conducted now on the connection between diet and early puberty in female children. Cases of girls as young as six developing breasts has led to these studies being conducted.
If schools are going to serve milk at all, it should be whole milk--not that fake, powdered crap (i.e. 2%, 1%, fat-free, reduced-fat, or whatever) that goes through much higher processing (for the fat removal). Fat--not from junk food, of course--is good for the body. There is also very little difference between using regular wheat versus whole grains in terms of their effect on one's body. They have very similar glycemic indexes (in fact, higher than table sugar) and the "nutrients" found in these grains aren't absorbed in the body anyway. The best option is probably to bring their own lunch from home. Many kids, however, can't afford this and have free (or reduced) lunch at school, which can often be a problem.
To tymesm and any others disseminating nutritional misinformation: According to the Mayo Clinic (recognized as one of the most highly renowned and respected clinics in the country) powdered (non fat) milk is one of the best ways to get your daily calcium! It's a product out there on the food shelves and is a great whole milk supplement that anyone would be well advised to make use of.
Tymesm, 100 percent whole wheat bread is far better for people to eat than that white nutritionally deficient substitute. According to Dr. Michael Roizen of the Cleveland Health Clinic the 100 per cent whole wheat breads move through the intestines at a much slower rate which greatly slows those ravenous urges to eat junk foods! Note: I don't know whether you're an agent for the food processing industry but your doing a good job of proslytizing their line of nonsense!
I'm one of those "told you so" people who ten years ago complained to my local school district about the lousy, sugary, fattening foods the junior high kids were being dosed with on a daily basis. At the time, the "so called local dieticians of the area" as well the school administrators looked at me like I was some nut case with two heads! The outrage of it all is that school administrations around the country have ever allowed (and many still continue to allow!) this nutritional devoid poison to be served up for as long as it has!! Enough, already! Offer only good, tasty and nutricious foods in all cafeterias in every school and university in the country!!
Note: As far as kids bringing their lunches from home, that's a great idea but "only" if the parents are nutritionally savey enough to make sure it's nutrionally of the "best" quality!
I personally think this is going to far! I think most kids will pass on the "healthy food" even if its on their plate leaving them hungry at school and therefore be less attentive and do poorly on testing performed later in the day! At my children's school they already do not allow chocolate milk in the morning for breakfast and my kids aren't crazy for the white milk so the drink the juice. Which now reduces their calcium intake for the day. I can say that this will happen at every school if they have to drink fat free or 1% milk! This is just my opinion but my healthy kids and other healthy kids have to suffer because of some over weight kids who btw will also suffer because they won't want to eat this food either!
we have too many obese and overweight people in US (like 2/3 of population), and it's about the time to educate kids and next generation on healthy eating, and provide healthier food for kids in schools.
for adults, changing to healthy eating is much more difficult, and we can see even at work place, fat people are eating burgers and sugar soft drinks everyday, rather than bringing in some healthy foods for lunch and simply switching to drinking tea instead. it's obvious why they are as fat or overweight as they are, or have diabetes. the sad thing is that they won't seek change to healthy eating until they become sick or get heart attacks or something, before they'd give up on burgers, sweets and pops.
The food on this lunch tray pictured with the article looks like what kids would say "ew" at. It is also what they do not get at home...It is at home where the fat and bad habits are. The first of the month when the food stamps come in..go to your local grocerty store and take a look at what is piled into the carts..it's a study in junk food. These kids are born and raised on junk...its what they want. I guarantee most of the "healthy food" found on this lunch tray is destined for the garbage can..
Schools are NOT undoing what parents are doing, Mrs. Obama. Parents with food stamps (the same ones who get free and reduced lunches) are buying soda pop, chips, cakes, cookies, candy; nothing but junk. This is what needs to be "fixed". How can we provide fresh fruits/veggies in OHIO when they are in season when school is out? The cost is astronomical. The double dipping administrators of our Local School system and government keeps cutting cafeteria funding but still want us to do more with less.
Healthier meals sounds great - but they'll still be serving greasy pizza...oh, wait, Congress said pizza is a vegetable now so everything is fine. Maybe the quality of the food preparation should improve and prices should be lower for healthier foods, get the vending machines out of the cafeterias even if it means less profit for the schools.