Michelle Obama had an eye on the health of the future generation, so she formulated a menu for school lunch. It assigned priority to nutritious foods like fruit and vegetables. This program was directed towards children from low-income families and covered nearly 30 million students. The focus was on health and one of the purposes was to avoid child obesity that came from a weakness for fast food. However, the Trump administration wants to replace the nutrition guidelines for school lunch designed by former First Lady Michelle Obama with a new combination of pizza and fries in place of fruit and vegetables.

That could amount to the indirect promotion of foods that are harmful to children

Los Angeles Times says agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced the changes on the birthday of Michelle Obama. The reason was to allow more flexibility to schools in the choice of food items to ensure a reduction of waste while making available nutritious and appetizing meals. However, child nutrition advocates look at it from another angle.

Sam Kass served as executive director of Obama’s campaign designed to combat child obesity. Los Angeles Times quotes him saying : "This country — and its kids — deserve so much better.” In his opinion, the implementation of this new scheme would affect the well-being of the children.

The modified school lunch package

Broad guidelines now issued will allow school authorities to define the school lunch menus.

They would have the option of reducing the number of certain types of vegetables served at lunch. They can redefine legumes offered as a meat alternative to be a part of the vegetable and serve potatoes as a vegetable. The new package would also see a reduction in the number of fruits served. The American Heart Assn. cautions that changes of this nature would “put children’s health at risk.”

Los Angeles Times quotes Anderson, president of the School Nutrition Assn., on the subject.

He explains that flexibilities in the new scheme has helped to prepare nutritious meals. These appeal to different tastes of the students and reduce wastages. There are critics. One of them says such a decision will affect the children’s health because they would go in for foods that are high in calories, saturated fat or sodium. They will do this at the cost of balanced school meals. A Virginia Democrat says this food is the only access to healthy, nutritious meals for a whole lot of children and should include what is useful from the health point of view.

Trump administration overhauls Obama’s school lunch

According to The Guardian, the Trump administration has modified the school lunch program of Michelle Obama.

The children will now be able to enjoy pizza, meat, and potatoes instead of fresh vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Such a menu will mean an increase in the input of fat, sugar, and calories that will have an adverse effect on the children. They could fall into the grip of obesity and diabetes. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) outlined the revised menu standards drawn up by the Food and Nutrition Service agency. It says the schools can replace vegetables and fruits with pizza, hamburgers and French fries. This agency looks after the nutritional programs for millions of students all over America.

What prompted the school lunch menu change

Mystery surrounds the logic of the Trump administration to change the contents of the school lunch menu from what Michelle Obama had drawn up.

The USDA justifies the move by saying that children do not like what is given hence there is wastage. That will be outdated with the new menu that appeals to the kids of today. Those in authority seem to have overlooked the dangers associated with foods in the new menu.
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