#hhfka

If you don’t have a child in school, work in school nutrition or pay much attention to the news, you may not know of the changes that affected school lunch starting last year. The Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA) was a radical piece of legislation that aimed to reduce childhood obesity and instill healthy eating habits in children. Promoted by First Lady Michelle Obama, the HHFKA mandated many changes that included more fruits and veggies in the children’s lunch, fewer proteins and grains, whole grains and whole wheat pasta, rice and breads, etc.

When the program rolled out in September 2013, everyone seemed to be having a hard time: Foodservice operators were having a hard time sourcing adequate products that met the standards; food manufacturers hadn’t developed enough products that met the standards; parents and children had a hard time adjusting to these new foods being offered, etc. A lot of the food served ended up in the garbage since children didn’t really want to eat the veggies they were forced to take with their lunch. (Veggies, ewww! they’d say).  Furthermore, the grain and protein portions were smaller which meant kids were getting a smaller sandwich with a smaller meat patty for instance. Due to this backlash, last year the regulation softened and lifted the cap on grains and proteins while keeping the overall calorie count of the meals. This allowed more flexibility to menu different meals.

According to the USDA’s Fact Sheet on HHFKA, the regulation has been overall successful. However, right now in Congress there is a battle going on to allow schools to opt out from the HHFKA rules if the schools are losing money in the lunch program. Regardless of political partisanship, if in fact this is the first step to roll back the changes, then we are in for a biggie. Research has shown that if young children are not encouraged to eat fruits and veggies, they will not eat them later in life. If children don’t eat healthy foods at home and are not even exposed to these foods in schools, then they will grow up with terribly unhealthy diets that will result in health problems later on. It is already a shame that being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the US has one of the highest indexes of type 2 diabetes, obesity (more than one third of Americans is obese according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and even worse, childhood obesity (17%). Can you imagine the situation getting worse?

The future of school lunch has very much to do with OUR future as a society not only from the public health point of view, but also from the local foods movement perspective. Did you know that a lot of schools have a Farm-to-School program? Without those purchases, the local farms might have a hard time subsisting. Furthermore, if children don’t learn to include fruits and vegetables in their diets, who will buy them in the future???  Will this be a society based on refined sugars and fried foods?

-From the website of Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)

Okay, I may have mixed feelings on the new Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act school lunch regulations in general, but the aspect that the country seems to be up in arms about – that children are starving to death because they are only getting 850 calories for lunch is NOT one of them. I’m sorry, Mr. King, but 850 calories for a single meal is not “extreme calorie rationing.” Student athletes may need more, and we may need to address that, but don’t forget that one in four U.S. teenagers is not fit to enlist in the military due to being overweight – according to a widely cited study published by JAMA, excess caloric intake in schools is a huge part of that (and students who DON’T eat school lunch tend to consume even more). 

I must say, it sure is apt that I’m in the middle of my foodservice rotation at a public school lunch facility at the exact moment that the country is up in arms about the newly implemented meal pattern guidelines of the recently implemented Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a quick primer:

The U.S. government has been in charge of the food served in public schools since the 1940s. The concept was originally born out of the fact that American children were undernourished, which compromised their ability to learn and created a national security risk considering that they weren’t healthy enough to serve in the military when they reached 18. The government began providing funding for free or reduced-cost lunches served in schools to qualifying families (based on income) and the National School Lunch Program exists to this day. As a tidy tie-in, the program provided a convenient outlet for all the food the government was (and still is) purchasing from farmers to keep the American agriculture business afloat.

These days, if you don’t qualify for a free or reduced meal, you can still purchase a school lunch for a significantly subsidized cost. In the district where I’m interning, it’s $2.40, and the district will still be reimbursed $0.27 for every paid lunch they serve. So since this is (literally!) government cheese we’re talking about, schools can’t just serve whatever they please; they have to meet certain nutrition standards. Let me point out that these particular guidelines only apply to the daily plated meal – schools can and do offer supplemental foods on their a la carte lines, and these profits are often essential to keeping the district’s foodservice department afloat.

Up until just a few weeks ago, the nutrition standards that dictate what must go into the meal were based on 1995 legislation. Michelle Obama and her anti-childhood obesity crusade had a lot to do with the passage of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, but in 2007 (pre-Obama), the well-respected non-profit Institute of Medicine released their Nutrition Standards for Foods in Schools, which also had a lot to do with it.

Long story short, the 2010 act mandated that, starting with the 2012-2013 school year, school lunches would have to:

Include many more servings of fruits and vegetables, with particular specifications for variety in vegetables (a.k.a., French fries every day does not count – there must be dark leafy greens, red/orange veggies such as tomatoes, etc.)

Establish minimums and maximums for the amount of meat or meat alternatives (cheese, beans, tofu) and bread products that can be served each week. 

Set required average calorie ranges for each school level – meals must average between 750 and 850 calories at the high school level, for example.

Establish future regulations such as a new breakfast meal pattern, making all bread items whole grain-rich, and capping sodium levels, which begin rolling out next year.

I'm not sure the execution on this video is much to brag about, but it does draw attention to whether student athletes can get the calories they need considering the newly instituted calorie ranges for school meals dictated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (750 - 850 calories at lunch for high school students).