Congress is taking step in right direction towards fighting childhood obesity, through better nutrition guidelines for school lunches. Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the new guidelines yesterday during elementary school visits. The first lady believes better nutrition will help children perform and learn better, too.
“As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat, and ensure they have a reasonably balanced diet,” Michelle Obama said. “And when we’re putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria.”
So what are the new rules? Pizza and other kid favorites are still on the menu, but entire meals will have calorie caps for the first time and most trans fats will be banned. Sodium will gradually decrease over a 10 year period. Milk will have to be low in fat and flavored milks will have to be nonfat.
Against the wishes of the Obama administration, pizza sauce is still considered a vegetables, and there is no limit put on potato products, like french fries. But just because they can, doesn’t mean schools will count pizza as a vegetable. “Most schools are serving fruit or vegetables next to their pizza and some schools are even allowing unlimited servings of fruit or vegetables,” Diane Pratt-Heavner of the School Nutrition Association said.
One step at a time!
Photo: Reuters
