Why nutritious meals matter in school

Established by Congress in 1946, the National School Lunch Program is a federally subsidized program charged with providing low- or no-cost balanced meals to children each school day. The program was created, at least in part, to ensure that American farmers’ excess crops were purchased and consumed, but when the market for agriculture improved in the 1950s, the program shifted its aims to focus primarily on improving student nutrition, particularly for children from lower-income families. Specifically, the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 added subsidies for such students and extended them to include school breakfast. 

The program declined significantly in the 1980s and ’90s, largely as a result of Reagan-era budget cuts. During that time, many children lost their qualifying status for school meals; the nutritional quality of those meals plummeted (as epitomized by the Reagan administration’s 1981 decision to classify ketchup as a vegetable), and childhood obesity rates soared (Rude, 2016). Since then, however, standards have gradually improved, with Congress taking new steps to ensure that nutritional guidelines comport with scientific evidence. Notably, in 2010, and with strong backing from first lady Michelle Obama and her Let’s Move! campaign, Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which required that all grain products served in school contain at least 50% whole grains; reduced the amount of sodium, full-fat milk, and meat in school meals, and eliminated snacks with low nutritional value in favor of healthier choices, such as fruit cups and granola bars.  

In 2018, however, the Trump administration abruptly rolled back the limits on sodium and the whole-grain requirement. This prompted the states of New York, California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, to file a lawsuit contesting these rollbacks, noting that there was no scientific evidence to support such changes — in fact, the new standards fall short of the government’s own Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Further, the plaintiffs argued, the new rules were put in place illegally, without adhering to requirements to provide the public with advance notice and the opportunity to air concerns about potential effects on students’ health, particularly among vulnerable populations, such as low-income children and children of color.