USDA Takes Long-Term Look at Nutrition Standards

March 24, 2023 | Shannon Vance

Since 1980, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans has provided evidenced-based direction on what to eat and drink to optimize health and reduce chronic disease risk. The guidelines are designed to help nutrition and health professionals and policymakers as they “develop, implement and evaluate federal food, nutrition and health policies and programs.” Many state and local governments, school districts, and community groups use the guidelines to develop additional public programming.

The 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines emphasizes the importance of a healthy dietary pattern throughout the lifespan—not just individual nutrients, foods, or food groups. According to the Dietary Guidelines, people two years and older should follow a healthy eating pattern with a variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, and a variety of protein foods and oils. As a child grows, their nutrient needs vary. The best dietary pattern for a child’s development considers the child’s age, gender, and activity level, as well as several other characteristics.

Healthy eating in childhood and adolescence is essential for optimal development and helps prevent a variety of chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and type II diabetes. Not only are schools uniquely placed to provide children with learning opportunities around healthy eating behaviors, but they are well-positioned to provide a space for students to practice those behaviors. School meals are often the most nutritious meal a child will eat in their day, providing more milk, fruits, and vegetables than meals brought from home.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National School Lunch and Breakfast Program ensures that administered meals are consistent with the Dietary Guidelines recommendations. This guarantees that the meals provided at school offer the most nutritious food and beverages to support a child’s growth.

In February 2022, the USDA updated its school nutritional standards. However, these standards were only meant to be transitional to help schools recover from lingering uncertainty after the COVID-19 pandemic and were only intended for the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years. By doing so, the USDA hoped to balance the needs of the schools as the food supply chain recovered, while also taking small steps toward improving the nutritional quality of school meals.

Proposed Changes to Come

In preparation for the 2024-2025 school year (SY2024-2025), USDA has proposed a final rule for long-term school nutrition standards and is seeking public input on the proposed changes. The proposed changes aim to ensure that all school meals align with the ideal dietary pattern outlined in the Dietary Guidelines. Key changes include:

• Sugar: Implementing updated sugars standards for the school lunch and breakfast programs including product-specific limits on added sugars in grain-based desserts (< 2oz/week in school breakfast), breakfast cereals (<= 6g/dry ounce), yogurts (<= 12g/6oz), and flavored milks (<=10g/8oz or 15g/12oz) and dietary limits on added sugars to less than 10% of calories per week.
• Sodium: Gradually reducing school meal sodium limits by 10% each year between SY2025-2030 for school lunch and between SY2025-2028 for school breakfast.
• Whole Grain: Maintaining the current whole grain requirements that at least 80% of the weekly grains offered are whole grain rich. USDA is specifically requesting public input on an alternative option that would allow one day a week for schools to offer enriched grains, while requiring the whole grain rich requirement the other days of the week.
• Supply Chain: Proposing measures to strengthen the Buy American provision in the school meal programs by maintaining the current limited exemptions and adding a limit to the resources that can be used for non-domestic purchases.

Additionally, USDA is considering two different milk proposals. Alternative A proposes to allow flavored milk at school breakfast and lunch for high school children only. This would mean that children in grades K-8 would be limited to fat-free and low-fat unflavored milk. Alternative B proposes to maintain the current standard, allowing all schools to offer both flavored and unflavored fat-free and low-fat milk. Flavored milk would still be subject to the added sugars limit, regardless of the proposal selected.

The final rule also proposes a variety of changes to school meal requirements, including adding schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education and schools that serve primarily American Indian or Alaska Native children to the list of schools that may serve vegetables to meet the grains requirement. The final rule also addresses proposals from a prior rulemaking and makes several technical corrections to child nutrition program regulations.

The proposed rule is open for comment as of Feb. 7, 2023, and will remain open until April 10, 2023. While this rule involved extensive stakeholder engagement, further input on all aspects of the proposed rule is encouraged. USDA invites public input on any of the proposed changes, but requests specific input on the proposed questions at the end of each section. Instructions on how to comment can be found on the Federal Register.