School Lunches Too Fatty, Report Says : Education: U.S.-funded meals found to exceed government’s own guidelines. Legislation is proposed that would mandate healthier menus.

Virtually all federally funded school lunches exceed the government’s own dietary standards for fat and salt content, according to an Agriculture Department report released Monday.

“With the school lunch being the best meal of the day for many of our children, we must do better,” said Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy, whose department runs the federal school lunch program. “A good school lunch is as important as a good school book. You can’t get what is in the book unless you energize the brain.”

Espy said that the government owes it to the nearly 25 million children who eat the lunches, their parents and taxpayers--who pumped $4.7 billion into the program in fiscal year 1993--to ensure that the lunches are healthy.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, (D-Vt.) plans to introduce legislation today that would mandate that school lunches meet federal dietary guidelines.

Those guidelines prescribe that not more than 30% of calories come from fat. The new report showed that the meals served at 99% of the participating schools exceeded that level, with an average of 38% of calories coming from fat.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who heads the Administration’s task force on health care reform, has endorsed the measure, saying that it will save the country money in the long run.

“An emphasis on prevention is critical to cutting health care costs and proper nutrition--starting at the earliest ages--is essential to the prevention of at least three costly diseases: heart disease, cancer and stroke,” Mrs. Clinton said in a letter of support for the legislation.

The dietary guidelines, which would be mandated by the Leahy legislation, also specify that saturated fats should not account for more than 10% of the calories.

The average percentage of calories from saturated fats in lunches at the 545 schools surveyed was 15%. The sodium content of the food was almost twice the recommended amount.

“Childhood is when we form lifelong eating habits, yet the federal government is feeding lunches to millions of kids with 50% more saturated fat than the government itself recommends, and nearly twice the sodium,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group.

“Clearly, something is very wrong in Uncle Sam’s kitchen,” he said. “School lunches and breakfasts should be promoting our children’s health, not undermining it.”

Schools serving meals with the lowest percentage of calories from fat served more poultry and meatless entrees and offered less ground beef and french fries, according to the study. They also served fewer cookies and cakes but more gelatin and yogurt.

The study found that school lunches provide one-third or more of the recommended daily allowances of key nutrients, including calories, protein, vitamins and minerals. School breakfast programs, also analyzed in the report, fared better but still contained slightly more fat and sodium and considerably more saturated fats than prescribed.

Congress authorized the national school lunch program in 1946 to “safeguard the health and well-being of the nation’s children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other foods.”

Forty percent of the children eating the lunches get them free because their families are poor and another 7% pay a reduced price of 40 cents or less. The federal government also subsidizes the full-price lunches. Ninety-nine percent of public schools participate.

School lunches must include five items: meat or a meat substitute like cheese or peanut butter, two or more vegetables or fruits, whole-grain or enriched bread or a bread alternate, and milk.

Under the legislation proposed by Leahy, schools would receive an additional $40 million annually to pay for more vegetables and fruits, $35 million for low-fat dairy products and $10 million for lean meats.

The annual cost of the legislation, which includes money for nutrition training for school personnel and additional money for other federal nutrition programs, would be $300 million.

Leahy, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said that he believes the bill has an excellent chance of passing.

“The money will be there,” he said. “Especially because you can show a direct corollary to health.”