School Lunch Reform: No Straight A’s

The long-awaited federal proposal on reforming government-subsidized school lunches was criticized on several fronts even before its formal release Wednesday in Washington.

The plan, which was hailed as a major reform by U.S. Department of Agriculture officials, actually did not address some of the most controversial aspects of food service in the nation’s elementary and secondary schools. An estimated 25 million government subsidized lunches are served each day to 54% of the nation’s school children.

Left untouched by the 123-page proposed regulation was the presence of fast-food chains on campuses; the widespread availability of soda, candy and junk food vending machines, and the continued serving of whole milk as opposed to reduced-fat versions.

The plan, after a final 90-day public-comment period, is scheduled to go into effect for the 1998-1999 school year. The implementation period was called reasonable by representatives of school lunch workers, but nutrition activists decried it as far too long a phase-in. Some critics disagreed with the philosophy behind the reform; others felt that the plan has too many inconsistencies.

*

The key component of the “Nutrition Objectives for School Meals” is a requirement that the meals served students--eligible for federal assistance--meet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Principal among the guidelines are recommendations on reducing fat, saturated fat and cholesterol in the typical American diet. They state that fat as a percentage of total calories should not exceed 30% per day. Saturated-fat content should not be in excess of 10% of the day’s calories. And cholesterol should be limited to 300 milligrams daily.

For the purposes of the federal school lunch program, the meals served during the course of a week are to be averaged in order to determine if they meet the guidelines. States are being asked to enforce the regulation and to determine whether schools seeking federal meal assistance meet the new regulations.

USDA appeared to exempt itself from complying with the dietary guidelines. The department sidestepped the issue of whether USDA should distribute to schools only those surplus agricultural commodities that meet the dietary guidelines. Some of the commodities currently distributed are butter, cheese and meat.

Nevertheless, USDA’s own data indicates that reduced-fat meals are not popular with students. The proposal states, for instance, that about 40% of schools currently offer lunches that meet the dietary guidelines, yet “few” children or teens select the meals. Current data also indicate that when fat content of meals is reduced below 32%, there is a corresponding 6% drop in the number of children choosing such lunches.

*

“I’ve got real problems with what they are proposing,” said Rod Leonard, executive director of the Community Nutrition Institute, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group. “The issue for school children, especially children in primary and secondary schools, is (that) they are still in a growing phase. The single most important nutrient they require is calories. . . . Government policy should focus on adequate caloric intake till the child has finished his or her growth phase. If we adopt other criteria and goals, then we will create an increased risk to health that is unnecessary in those age groups.”

Suzanne Kordesh, a nutrition specialist who works with school districts in Oakland, San Jose and Alameda, agreed that providing adequate calories for growth was an issue in reformulating school lunches.

“We are watching that,” she said. “When you reduce fat, then you reduce the calories and you need to make up for that loss in other ways . . . such as serving more fruit, vegetables and whole grains.”

School food-service officials have testified at four hearings, held to gather public comment on the proposal, that the new guidelines will make it difficult to serve ethnic meals to children and that the low-fat regimen may increase the amount of plate waste.

“Student behavior needs to be addressed (in this reform), as well as what is served or what appears on the menu,” said Kevin Dando, government affairs manager for the American School Food Service Assn. in Alexandria, Va. “This needs to be done carefully so that the changes do not drive students from the school lunch program to vending machines.”

*

According to the plan, USDA is not “proposing any specific provision on fast food . . . at this time.” And the department stated that requiring that low- or nonfat milk be served in school in place of whole milk, with a 4% fat content, can only be changed by an act of Congress. The issue of vending machines was not addressed.

“From our point of view, all items (whether fast-food meals or whole milk) should meet the federal dietary guidelines. Certainly it is unfortunate that the issue of whole milk is not addressed in this regulation,” said Tricia Obester, spokeswoman for Public Voice for Food & Health Policy, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Obester said that legislation introduced in Congress by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) addresses the issues of whole milk, fast food and vending machines.

“I hope when USDA officials testify before Congress on this issue that they will highlight how inconsistent it is to continue to offer whole milk at cafeterias when they are trying to pare down the fat content of school lunches,” she said.

Public Voice has also been critical of the four-year phase-in for the school lunch reforms.

“The school lunch program needed drastic change but there is no reason that it should take four more years to implement these change,” she said.

A coalition of consumer and health advocacy groups petitioned USDA to implement the reforms for the 1995-1996 school year.

“There is no reason USDA should be so far behind,” Obester said.