CSPI: Regarding child nutrition programs

February 2, 2010

From: Margo G. Wootan, Director, Nutrition Policy
Re: Child Nutrition Programs

Congress has stepped up its work on reauthorizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s school lunch, school breakfast, and other child nutrition programs, a process that occurs about every five years.

The programs were supposed to be reauthorized in 2009, but Congress passed a one-year extension. Activity on the reauthorization is being kicked off with the announcement of the President’s budget, major speeches by Administration officials, and the launch of the First Lady’s childhood obesity initiative.

Both the Senate Agriculture Committee and the House Education and Labor Committee already have held several hearings and are writing their child nutrition bills, and individual Members of Congress are working on marker bills.

The Committees and the Administration have indicated that they plan to finish the bill within the time frame of the existing budget resolution, which means the bill will need to be completed by late March/early April.

This year’s child nutrition reauthorization is important for helping struggling families feed their children in these tough economic times. It also is a key way to address the sky-high rates of childhood obesity and children’s poor diets.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is working with about 100 members of the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity to incorporate the following recommendations into the child nutrition reauthorization:

Get junk food out of schools. The national standards for foods sold out of vending machines and a la carte are out of date (they were developed back in the 1970s) and are out of sync with current science (they do not address calories, saturated and trans fat, and sodium).

CSPI is working with Senators Harkin and Murkowski and Representative Woolsey on the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act (S 934/HR 1324), which would require USDA to update those standards and apply them to the whole school campus for the whole school day. The bill has over 190 cosponsors. While this issue was once very controversial, there is growing agreement that soda and junk food do not belong in schools.

Improve the nutritional quality of school meals. USDA is currently writing regulations to update and strengthen the nutrition standards for school meals, based on recommendations made by the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine. Congress should take several steps to support school efforts to improve school lunches and breakfasts:

o Increase the reimbursement rates for school meals to help schools add more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and reduce saturated and trans fat, added sugars, and sodium.

o Strengthen accountability to ensure that schools meet school nutrition standards. Representative Tonko will soon introduce a bill to require USDA to develop a new accountability system. Currently, compliance with school meal nutrition standards is assessed in only one school per school district every five years.

o Allow only low-fat milk to be served with school meals. Milk is by far the biggest source of saturated fat in children’s diets. Current law requires schools to serve milk with a variety of fat contents.

Strengthen school wellness policy implementation and transparency. All school districts that participate in the national school nutrition programs are required to have nutrition and physical activity wellness policies. Such policies have spurred many schools to adopt policies to improve school foods, provide recess and physical education, and limit unhealthy school fundraisers. However, many others have not implemented policies.

Strengthen technical assistance, training, and provide grants for schools to improve the nutritional quality of school meals, remove junk food from vending machines, improve the nutritional quality of school commodities, implement school wellness policies, and promote healthy eating by children.