Sign our letter now speaking out against rollbacks to school meal
nutrition standards by the Trump Administration!
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Dear Friend,
For years mom, dads, and educators around the country fought to improve
the nutrition standards of the meals served in schools to help our kids
grow up healthy and happy. And now the Trump Administration is trying to
take it all away with their newest federal rule change. [1]
[ [link removed] ]***SIGN OUR LETTER calling on the Trump Administration to strengthen,
not weaken, nutrition standards in school meals.
Here’s what’s going on: In late January, the Trump Administration
announced their latest federal rule that will have a huge impact on the
health and well-being of our children—30 million students in 99,000
schools around the country. [2] This time they want to greatly weaken the
nutrition standards of meals served in schools across the country.
Here are a few ways they are trying to chip away at the progress we have
made to make school lunch, breakfast, and snacks healthier and more
delicious:
* Allows kids to eat pizza, burgers, chicken nuggets, cookies, and
French fries for lunch every day.
* Decreases vegetables like carrots and cucumbers and increases the
amount of french fries at lunch.
* Halves the amount of fruit offered and reduces the amount of grains in
breakfasts. [3]
We want our kids to eat healthier foods and have schools reinforce the
healthy options we provide our children at home. It’s especially important
that children who are facing hunger, are able to access fresh fruits and
vegetables, whole grains, and continue to learn healthy eating habits at
school.
[ [link removed] ]We want the Trump Administration to help us raise healthy children, not
chip away at the hard fought for nutrition standards for school meals that
parents around the country appreciate!
***SIGN OUR LETTER calling on the Trump Administration to support
nutrition standards in school meals, not weaken them.
This isn’t the Trump Administration’s first attack on school meals. In
2018, the USDA rolled back school meal nutrition standards by implementing
a regulation that allows unsafe sodium levels in school meals, requires
fewer whole grains, and allows flavored 1 percent milk. [4] This came
after 99 percent of public comments submitted, by USDA’s own estimate,
were in opposition to the proposed rollbacks. Parents didn’t want these
changes. Educators and nutrition experts spoke out against them. Yet the
Trump Administration implemented them anyway.
These rollbacks threaten the progress we have made on school foods. USDA’s
own study, found that thanks to the updated standards implemented by the
Obama administration, the nutritional quality of school meals has
significantly increased. This study also shows that school meals have
improved children’s diet and health, especially among students coming from
food insecure and low-income households. [5] And kids like the new foods
they are eating—more students are choosing fruit in the lunch line and
students are eating more of their school meal entrees. That’s the type of
news moms like to hear! [ [link removed] ]
Researchers from the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health
estimated that the updated nutrition standards that were implemented
during the Obama Administration could prevent up to two million cases of
childhood obesity and save nearly $800 million in healthcare costs over
ten years, concluding these changes to be “one of the most important
national obesity prevention policy achievements in recent decades.” [ [link removed] ]
[6]But if the Trump Administration gets their way, all that progress could
be rolled back.
We can’t let that happen! Sign our letter now speaking out against
rollbacks to school meal nutrition standards.
We have until March 23^rd to make our voices heard—that is the deadline
for comments. When you [7]sign our letter we will include your signature
in our official comment to the USDA and Trump Administration speaking out
against their proposed school meal nutrition standards change. So make
sure to sign our letter and then forward this email to your friends and
family and [ [link removed] ]post the action link to Facebook encouraging everyone you
know to sign on as well.
Thank you for helping us raise healthy and happy children!!
-Elyssa, Donna, Kristin, and the entire MomsRising / MamásConPoder team
P.S. Join us on Friday, March 6^th at 1pmET/10am PT for our #FoodFri
tweetchat, where we will be diving into this issue more with our guests
the Center for Science in the Public Interest (@CSPI), the American Heart
Association (@AmHeartAdvocacy), the Alliance for a Healthier Generation
(@HealthierGen), the Food Research and Action Center (@fractweets) and
Sweetgreen (@sweetgreen).
[1,2] [ [link removed] ]Washington Post. “More pizza, fewer vegetables: Trump
administration further undercuts Obama school-lunch rules.”
[3] [ [link removed] ]Federal Register. “Simplifying Meal Service and Monitoring
Requirements in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs.”
[4] [ [link removed] ]New York Times. “Trump Administration Rolls Back Obama-Era Rules
for School Lunches.”
[5] [ [link removed] ]USDA Food and Nutrition Service. “School Nutrition and Meal Cost
Study.”
[6] [ [link removed] ]Robert Woods Johnson Foundation. “School Meals Help Millions of
Kids Grow Up Healthy.”
[7] [ [link removed] ]Health Affairs. “Three Interventions That Reduce Childhood Obesity
Are Projected to Save More Than They Cost to Implement.”
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