Dive Brief:
- A new bipartisan Senate bill intends to scale back healthy school lunch measures that Republicans have fought against, allowing schools to keep, for example, high-sodium options on their menus.
- This week, the Senate Agriculture Committee is supposed to vote on the measure, which has the support of the School Nutrition Association.
- Some say that the bill will serve as a truce between school nutrition directors opposed to the stricter lunch standards and First Lady Michelle Obama, who has spearheaded a movement for healthier student lunches over the course of her husband's presidency.
Dive Insight:
Studies have previously found that many K-12 students actually just throw away healthy options like fruits and vegetables, with one report from the Harvard School of Public Health showing that 75% of vegetables and 40% of fruit served in school cafeteria lunches end up in the trash.
Students have also chosen to opt out of healthier lunch programs.
Yet childhood obesity in the U.S. remains a growing problem, with the Centers for Disease Control reporting that childhood obesity has more than doubled in younger children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years.
