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The Trump administration against healthy eating
“THIS ISN’T like putting a man on the moon or inventing the internet,” said Michelle Obama in 2010 as she launched Let’s Move!, a campaign to fight childhood obesity that became her signature cause as First Lady. “It doesn’t take a stroke of genius or a feat of technology.”
Reducing America’s childhood obesity rates, which have tripled since the 1970s, does require government action, though. Because many children, especially from poor families, consume a large percentage of their daily calories at school, a big part of Mrs Obama’s effort focused on improving the quality of school lunches. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed in 2010 required school cafeterias to serve more fruit, vegetables, wholegrains and less salt. On December 12th the Trump administration published a rule rolling back some of those reforms.
Under the Obama reform, schools were only allowed to serve wholegrain-rich products (that is, those containing at least 50% whole grain). The changes announced by Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, which will come into effect next year, will require them to offer half as many. This will allow schools to serve children more refined (white) grain products. They will also be allowed to offer low-fat milk and flavoured milk rather than non-fat versions.
More drastically, the changes relax the rules on salt in school meals. American children consume an average of 3,387 mg of sodium a day, about the same as adults. Federal dietary guidelines suggest a daily limit of 2,300 mg. The Obama-era reforms therefore sought to gradually reduce the amount of salt served at school by introducing three time-staggered reduction targets. But the new rules ease up on those, delaying two of the targets and eliminating the third altogether. As a result, schools need never meet the federal dietary guidelines.
Of all the Trump administration’s many regulatory cuts, the unrolling of these modest improvements to school food (which is still pretty dire) is among the hardest to fathom. Nearly one in three American children is overweight or obese (measured as a body mass index of 30 or more). And many of those who are not soon will be. Overweight children tend to get fatter as they age; 40% of American adults are obese. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine predicted that by the time they are in their mid-thirties, 57% of children today will be obese.
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/12/13/the-trump-administration-against-healthy-eating?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fbl%2Fed%2Fauto
Reducing America’s childhood obesity rates, which have tripled since the 1970s, does require government action, though. Because many children, especially from poor families, consume a large percentage of their daily calories at school, a big part of Mrs Obama’s effort focused on improving the quality of school lunches. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed in 2010 required school cafeterias to serve more fruit, vegetables, wholegrains and less salt. On December 12th the Trump administration published a rule rolling back some of those reforms.
Under the Obama reform, schools were only allowed to serve wholegrain-rich products (that is, those containing at least 50% whole grain). The changes announced by Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, which will come into effect next year, will require them to offer half as many. This will allow schools to serve children more refined (white) grain products. They will also be allowed to offer low-fat milk and flavoured milk rather than non-fat versions.
More drastically, the changes relax the rules on salt in school meals. American children consume an average of 3,387 mg of sodium a day, about the same as adults. Federal dietary guidelines suggest a daily limit of 2,300 mg. The Obama-era reforms therefore sought to gradually reduce the amount of salt served at school by introducing three time-staggered reduction targets. But the new rules ease up on those, delaying two of the targets and eliminating the third altogether. As a result, schools need never meet the federal dietary guidelines.
Of all the Trump administration’s many regulatory cuts, the unrolling of these modest improvements to school food (which is still pretty dire) is among the hardest to fathom. Nearly one in three American children is overweight or obese (measured as a body mass index of 30 or more). And many of those who are not soon will be. Overweight children tend to get fatter as they age; 40% of American adults are obese. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine predicted that by the time they are in their mid-thirties, 57% of children today will be obese.
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/12/13/the-trump-administration-against-healthy-eating?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fbl%2Fed%2Fauto