Society of Behavioral Medicine position statement: retain school meal standards and healthy school lunches

Abstract

In 2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) altered nutrition standards in the U.S. National School Lunch Program in an attempt to promote healthy eating and improve children's overall health. However, it was reported that these nutrition standard changes were leading to lower consumption of meals and an increase in plate waste. Initial research was unable to validate these reports. Despite these unsubstantiated claims, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a proposal to roll back some of the nutritional standards implemented by the HHFKA in 2017. An exploration of the current literature uncovered several new studies that further support the updated meal standards outlined in the HHFKA. Identifying and reviewing these studies was the aim of the current brief. Several new studies found that the implementation of the HHFKA standards led to healthier meals, increased fruit consumption, lower plate waste, and reductions in sodium and calories from saturated fats, to name a few. Given the continued evidence that the HHFKA standards improve dietary quality of school meals, policymakers, schools, and stakeholders are urged to continue to support the retention of the new meal standards.

Characteristic Body Mass Index and Nutrition Knowledge of Snack Food School-Age Children Among Elementary School Students at SD Ciawi Jatinangor

“…Contribution parents especially mother significantly higher to improve menu their children lunch box. 6 In this study, self efficacy participants for new information about ingridients healthy snack food are good. They are not continue eating snack food with the unhealthy ingridients.…”

“…Interaction between school aged children with their family has important to contribute building students food behavior, in terms of preferences variety food consumption. 6 Healthy choices menu food consumption in their family behavior usually influenced the patterns choices kind of snacking food especially snacking food at school. School also has important contribute building student food behavior.…”

Improving school lunch menus with multi-objective optimisation: nutrition, cost, consumption and environmental impacts

“…To improve the nutritional quality and ensure nutritionally adequacy of school meals served through the US NSLP, the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 updated school meal nutrition standards by increasing requirements for fruits, vegetables and wholegrains and setting limits on calories and Na (4) . This policy undoubtedly improved the nutritional quality of school meals but raised concerns over the possibility of increased costs and student plate waste (8)(9)(10)(11)(12) .…”