It’s been 10 years since the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act became law: What’s happened with schoolchildren’s health as a result and how have different aspects of this policy fared so far?
Mollie Van Lieu, senior director of nutrition policy for United Fresh Produce Association, said the association is celebrating the policy’s decade anniversary, officially Dec. 13, and it’s an especially significant moment for her.
Van Lieu used to work on Capitol Hill, and she helped former U.S. Representative Todd Platts with the bill as it was going through the House.
Now, she’s advocating for the produce industry as part of United Fresh, which also pushed for the bill 10 years ago.
“A huge part of our nutrition policy is the school meals program,” she said.
The program strengthened nutrition standards for meals and drinks provided through the National School Lunch, Breakfast and Smart Snacks Programs, affecting 50 million children daily at 99,000 schools.
School nutrition standards hadn’t changed for about 30 years, Van Lieu said.
The 2010 policy enforces nutrition based on foods, rather than nutrients, that follow the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines, and calls for more quantity and variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, along with a calorie cap at the end of the week.
One of the biggest wins was the proven impact of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act on obesity trends, but the groundbreaking research results came out during the summer and was lost among all the pandemic news, she said.
Harvard University studied the program’s effects on childhood obesity in 173,013 youth in the National Survey of Children’s Health from 2013 to 2018.
While there was no change overall, for the portion of children who live in poverty — the children who depend on and eat these school meals the most — obesity risk rates dropped by almost 50%, according to the study.
There are rules that have been contested since then with other food categories in the policy, but the fresh produce sector hasn’t seen the same kind of rollbacks, Van Lieu said.
Critics said there was more food waste because children tossed their vegetables, but there was no change in volume of waste since the new policy was set, Van Lieu said. The cost of the waste had increased, as fresh produce is more expensive than fortified processed foods, what some call junk food.
However, since the COVID-19 pandemic closed many school buildings while also increasing the need for these meals with the financial crisis, temporary flexibility on some of these rules has been granted so that school districts can give out these meals to-go.
A key flexibility is that children or their families don’t need to prove their financial means necessitate food and nutrition assistance.
These previously need-based breakfast and lunches have been given out to anyone who wants them.
And Van Lieu said United Fresh wants that policy to continue post-pandemic.
Schools give textbooks and bus rides to children regardless of their family financial situation, and lunchtime nutrition should be the same way, she said.
So, the association will push for eliminating the means-based aspect of the school nutrition program in the coming months after the coronavirus is under control.
Watch the video to learn more.
