USDA secretary announces halt on school nutrition standards

[GMDino]

Just remember folks we have to start toughening up these snowflake children!  They'll eat what we make if they don't like it...we'll change the rules to give them what they want.

Not like a lot of them will be able to afford school lunches soon anyway.

Quote:http://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2017/0502/USDA-secretary-announces-halt-on-school-nutrition-standards?cmpid=TW

United States Department of Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue has had a busy first week. Only six days after his appointment to the new position, Mr. Perdue announced Monday that he would roll back Obama-era school nutrition standards, a move that has prompted criticism from a number of nutrition experts around the country.

Perdue called for a relaxation of the standards in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act introduced in 2010, which had been championed by both former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama. The rollback would reduce whole-grain requirements, allow higher levels of sodium entrees, and restore higher-fat and sweetened milk to school cafeterias nationwide.

Critics of the move point to high rates of obesity among American children, with many Democrats saying the rollback is part of a reckless and irresponsible anti-regulatory crusade on behalf of the Republican Party. But defenders of Perdue's new plan say that halting the plan will loosen overly restrictive legislation that leaves schools with food students often refuse to eat.

"This announcement is the result of years of feedback from students, schools, and food service experts about the challenges they are facing in meeting the final regulations for school meals," Perdue said in a statement during a visit to Catoctin Elementary School in Leesburg, Va. "If kids aren't eating the food, and it's ending up in the trash, they aren't getting any nutrition – thus undermining the intent of the program."

There is at least some peer-reviewed journal evidence to support the notion that younger children tend to enjoy less healthy food, says Angie Griffin, a nutrition expert and assistant clinical professor at Texas Woman's University. But that does not mean that schools should return to older, less healthy menus, she adds.

"[Studies show] that for some students it's the only nutritious food consumed throughout the day," Ms. Griffin tells The Christian Science Monitor in an email.

And for many poor students, a school lunch is the only meal that can be counted on as a regular source of food, she adds, making school food nutrition an important social and nutritional component of young children's lives – something that she says cannot simply be ignored to make things a little easier on school pocketbooks. 

Despite the importance of the school food for many students, proponents of the change argue that it's sometimes challenging for budget-strapped schools to create meals from fresh ingredients. With current funding levels, many schools may find it easier to rely on cheaper, mass-produced meals. While government subsidies do exist for the purpose of providing healthier meals to students, some school districts have found themselves coming up short.

Unfortunately, say some experts, it's often the schools whose students most need nutritious lunches that have the hardest time serving them. "The only advantage to offering less healthy options is a balanced school budget," says Kristen Linton, a professor of Health Science at California State University, Channel Islands.

Dr. Linton tells the Monitor that lower-income school districts with large student body populations in particular tend to struggle when it comes to serving healthy options. She gives the example of a local high school district in Southern California, which has the second-highest obesity rate in the state:

Quote:"Eighty percent of the students at this school district qualify for free or reduced school lunch. The school district is reimbursed $3.16 for those who qualify for free lunch and $2.76 for those who qualify for reduced lunch for 2016-2017. Thus, the school nutrition services must plan healthy, balanced lunches that cost generally $3.16 or less per student. That is no easy task given that they are required to also meet other dietary, caloric requirements by the state as well. School districts with fewer students who qualify for free or reduced school lunch would have higher budgets and more flexibility to offer healthier options."

Since the 1970s, the childhood obesity rate in the US has more than tripled, a trend that the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was created to reverse. The 2010 bill drew bipartisan support, though it received some resistance from lobbying groups such as the School Nutrition Association, and some house Republicans. Now, however, 97 percent of schools in the US are implementing the standards set by the act, though Perdue's announcement is likely to keep that implementation from ever reaching 100 percent.

"The standards that were enacted during the past eight years have helped to improve the quality of food so that there is less sugar, less saturated fat, less sodium, but more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains – with many new and tasty recipes being used," Miriam Nelson, nutritionist and director of the Sustainability Institute at the University of New Hampshire, tells the Monitor in an email. "Our children matter, so society should care about what our children are fed."

Gotta save a buck anywhere we can...right?

Looks like @POTUS hit the links today. Not via WH press pool, but via Instagrammer at his club pic.twitter.com/Uptz2hlLCh

— Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) May 6, 2017

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

Government regulations for clean air, clean water, and healthy food standards are killing industry. If we don't roll back the government over reach while we have the chance pretty soon we won't have any fat kids to work the coal mines.

[6andcounting]

Forcing kids to eat a shit meal that is supposed to, in some ways, be healthy only teaches kids that eating healthy is disgusting and doesn't satisfy hunger. The Michelle lunch program was a well-intended, feel good pet project that accomplished nothing and mostly just taught kids misconceptions about healthy choices and made them skip a meal. Students are no worse or better off after this change. The key to criticizing Trump over this is that he isn't doing anything to make it better, not that he made anything worse.

[*Nately120*]

The sooner we get kids eating junk the sooner we can look down on them for making all those poor life choices that led them to have the pre-existing conditions their insurance won't cover.

[Benton]

(05-07-2017, 03:01 PM)6andcounting Wrote: Forcing kids to eat a shit meal that is supposed to, in some ways, be healthy only teaches kids that eating healthy is disgusting and doesn't satisfy hunger. The Michelle lunch program was a well-intended, feel good pet project that accomplished nothing and mostly just taught kids misconceptions about healthy choices and made them skip a meal. Students are no worse or better off after this change. The key to criticizing Trump over this is that he is doing anything to make it better, not that he made anything worse.

Just curious, have been in a kids cafeteria in the last decade?

Maybe you just have bad school cooks.

[6andcounting]

(05-07-2017, 04:10 PM)Benton Wrote: Just curious, have been in a kids cafeteria in the last decade?

Maybe you just have bad school cooks.

The first half of the last decade.

And you don't need to be sitting in a high school cafeteria to say that a meal that's 60% carbs and 15% protein in terms of total calories isn't actually contributing to anyone's healthy lifestyle. There's more to nutrition than eating low fat and low sodium.  Those two things are actually essential fuel for your body; simply limiting those things from your diet without understanding what your current intake is and how much you are using any giving day is counterproductive. 

Standing at about 5'9", I weighed 156 pounds last summer eating 200 grams of fat a day and eating salt by the spoonful. That was 4 years after leaving high school weighing about 240 with no muscle or strength.

[Rotobeast]

(05-07-2017, 04:50 PM)6andcounting Wrote: Standing at about 5'9", I weighed 156 pounds last summer eating 200 grams of fat a day and eating salt by the spoonful. That was 4 years after leaving high school weighing about 240 with no muscle or strength.

[*bfine32*]

Did they also outlaw bringing lunch from home?

[Matt_Crimson]

Kids aren't obese/unhealthy because of what schools decide to put on a school menu. Parents are a major reason why their kids end up fat. Giving kids whatever they want so that they'll shut up has become an increasingly normal behavior when it comes to parenting. This is just as true for food as it is for technology. 

Yes son, you can have a double quarter pounder with 10pc nuggets and play with your $700 iPad if you'll just shut the hell up.

[GMDino]

(05-07-2017, 06:26 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Did they also outlaw bringing lunch from home?

No, but in many cases that hot lunch at school is the only meal they get.  That's another issue.

(05-07-2017, 07:11 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Kids aren't obese/unhealthy because of what schools decide to put on a school menu. Parents are a major reason why their kids end up fat. Giving kids whatever they want so that they'll shut up has become an increasingly normal behavior when it comes to parenting. This is just as true for food as it is for technology. 

Yes son, you can have a double quarter pounder with 10pc nuggets and play with your $700 iPad if you'll just shut the hell up.

Which is why I'm surprised the GOP would back a plan that gives in to what the spoiled little brats want instead of a take it or leave it. 

[Benton]

(05-07-2017, 04:50 PM)6andcounting Wrote: The first half of the last decade.

And you don't need to be sitting in a high school cafeteria to say that a meal that's 60% carbs and 15% protein in terms of total calories isn't actually contributing to anyone's healthy lifestyle. There's more to nutrition than eating low fat and low sodium.  Those two things are actually essential fuel for your body; simply limiting those things from your diet without understanding what your current intake is and how much you are using any giving day is counterproductive. 

Standing at about 5'9", I weighed 156 pounds last summer eating 200 grams of fat a day and eating salt by the spoonful. That was 4 years after leaving high school weighing about 240 with no muscle or strength.

Different areas, I guess.

I was an education reporter back when all the complaining started. I ate in about 12 west Kentucky cafeterias over a few weeks. And in my fmdaughters every Wednesday. The food wasn't all that bad, or all those carbs. Really the only carbs were usually in the sand which brad or some of the fruits.

Sure, it was halfway bland because they couldn't use salt, but that didn't stop the kids from adding it on their own.

Maybe your school wasn't adhering to federal nutrition guidelines if it was all carbs and salt?

[6andcounting]

(05-08-2017, 09:38 AM)Benton Wrote: Different areas, I guess.

I was an education reporter back when all the complaining started. I ate in about 12 west Kentucky cafeterias over a few weeks. And in my fmdaughters every Wednesday. The food wasn't all that bad, or all those carbs. Really the only carbs were usually in the sand which brad or some of the fruits.

Sure, it was halfway bland because they couldn't use salt, but that didn't stop the kids from adding it on their own.

Maybe your school wasn't adhering to federal nutrition guidelines if it was all carbs and salt?

I wasn't meaning to sound like I was complaining specifically about my old school lunches. It's more so that it's a disservice when kids associate healthy eating with cheap, bland, low quality food that is a $2 school lunch. If kids only knew the taste of pizza from school cafeteria pizza, most kids wouldn't be all that into pizza. However, most kids love pizza because they associate it with pizza you'd get from an actual pizza shop. 

The whole idea behind healthy school lunches is that it's probably the only healthy meal kids are getting that day. That's likely true. But now kids think healthy food is trash because they only know healthy eating from what they get in their school lunches. 

[fredtoast]

(05-07-2017, 03:01 PM)6andcounting Wrote: Forcing kids to eat a shit meal that is supposed to, in some ways, be healthy only teaches kids that eating healthy is disgusting

Trying to teach children things like math that is supposed to, in some ways, be good for them only teaches kids that learning something hard is disgusting.

Just let the kids decide what is best for them.  Let them eat junk food and play HALO all day at school.  They will be so much happier that way.

[fredtoast]

(05-07-2017, 04:50 PM)6andcounting Wrote: Standing at about 5'9", I weighed 156 pounds last summer eating 200 grams of fat a day and eating salt by the spoonful. That was 4 years after leaving high school weighing about 240 with no muscle or strength.

Let me guess.  In high school all you ate was lean protein and green vegetables, right?

[6andcounting]

(05-08-2017, 02:10 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Trying to teach children things like math that is supposed to, in some ways, be good for them only teaches kids that learning something hard is disgusting.

Just let the kids decide what is best for them.  Let them eat junk food and play HALO all day at school.  They will be so much happier that way.

My post agreed with schools teaching about healthy food and providing meals that fit a healthy lifestyle. My criticism is that all schools do to make a meal "healthy" is make it low fat and low sodium. Neither of those two things should be avoided in a healthy diet and lifestyle. They key is eating the right amounts of both of those two things - along with the right amount of other macro nutrients, micro nutrients and electrolytes. 

[6andcounting]

(05-08-2017, 02:17 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Let me guess.  In high school all you ate was lean protein and green vegetables, right?

That started about a year out of high school.

[*bfine32*]

(05-08-2017, 02:10 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Trying to teach children things like math that is supposed to, in some ways, be good for them only teaches kids that learning something hard is disgusting.

Just let the kids decide what is best for them.  Let them eat junk food and play HALO all day at school.  They will be so much happier that way.

...oooorrrrr, IDK, maybe we could have a course called health or something like that where they learn about nutrition and then decide for themselves..........

Nah, let's force them

[Belsnickel]

(05-08-2017, 02:34 PM)bfine32 Wrote: ...oooorrrrr, IDK, maybe we could have a course called health or something like that where they learn about nutrition and then decide for themselves..........

Nah, let's force them

How is it forcing them? Are kids not allowed to bring their own lunches to school, anymore? I mean, the preference kids have for unhealthy foods is often the result of bad food habits learned at home, so if they want to eat junk then let them bring it themselves.

[*bfine32*]

(05-08-2017, 02:39 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: How is it forcing them? Are kids not allowed to bring their own lunches to school, anymore? I mean, the preference kids have for unhealthy foods is often the result of bad food habits learned at home, so if they want to eat junk then let them bring it themselves.

Yes they are. I believe I posed that exact question earlier when folks were upset about the guidelines being removed.

The point being they are not going to learn about proper nutrition because they have to each whole grain bread at school.

[fredtoast]

(05-08-2017, 02:47 PM)bfine32 Wrote: The point being they are not going to learn about proper nutrition because they have to each whole grain bread at school.

Actually many of them are.  Some never get whole grain bread unless they are at school.

You know how I learned to like whole grain bread and skim milk?  Bt being exposed to them and trying them.


Are we really arguing about if our kids should get healthy food at school?