Urge your member of Congress to support better lunch standards

From the Healthy Schools Campaign:

Earlier this year, we saw an exciting step forward for school food reform when the USDA released a proposal for updated nutrition standards for school food. These standards would add more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free and low-fat milk to school meals and would require schools to limit the levels of saturated fat, sodium, calories and trans fats served to students.

Now, the USDA is refining the standards based on the input received during a comment period earlier this year (more than 130,000 comments were submitted!) and planning to release the final standards this winter. These updated standards can make an important contribution to improved dietary intake and the long-term health of millions of children across the country; this is especially key given increasing childhood obesity rates and the substantial role school meals play in children's diets.

However, several members of Congress are attempting to stop the USDA’s efforts to complete this process and improve school meals. While attention has been focused on the debt debate, Congress continues to work on other issues key to children’s health, including this issue of nutrition standards for school meals. Now is an important time to raise your voice to help ensure that we don’t lose important progress for healthy school food.

Please take a moment to let your Senators and Representative know that you support healthier school meals by asking them to sign a letter in support of the USDA’s new standards.

The Baltimore County Healthy Kids Coalition urges parents to contact their member of Congress (find yours here) and encourage him/her to support implementing the healthier standards. Hearing from individual voters, rather than simply adding your name to a petition, is a more effective way of getting lawmakers' attention. Below is a sample letter from the Healthy Schools Campaign; feel free to use its language when contacting your lawmaker.

I write to ask you to sign on to the Dear Colleague letter being circulated by Representatives Miller and Polis in support of the updated school meal standards.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrition standards for school meals have not been updated in 15 years.  Current meal requirements are too low in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and allow too much salt and unhealthy fats.
USDA has proposed common-sense nutrition standards for school lunches and breakfast to help ensure that all children receive healthy school meals.  Given the sky-high childhood obesity rates and the important role school meals play in children's diets, once implemented, these updated standards will make an important contribution to improved dietary intake and the long-term health of millions of children across the country.

USDA has been working to develop these science-based school meal standards for over 6 years.  Though some worry about the cost of the new standards, the costs are covered via several provisions included in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was enacted into law in December 2010.  Also, USDA plans to provide extensive technical assistance and training to help schools implement the new standards.


Please show your support for these important updates to the school lunch and breakfast programs by signing on to the Miller/Polis "Dear Colleague" letter to USDA urging timely implementation of the proposed school meal standards.


I look forward to hearing if you will sign the letter.