(Mike Marsland / Contributor / Getty Images)
Former First Lady Michelle Obama received an unexpected birthday surprise on Friday afternoon: The Trump administration announced plans to roll back her school lunch standards on vegetables and fruits, providing school districts with more flexibility on the local level.
“Schools and school districts continue to tell us that there is still too much food waste and that more common-sense flexibility is needed to provide students nutritious and appetizing meals,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in a statement. “We listened and now we’re getting to work.”
The proposed rules build on previous steps taken by the Trump administration to unwind the controversial school lunch rules championed by Obama as part of her “Let’s Move!” healthy living campaign. Those rules were implemented through an executive order signed by former President Obama.
The Obama administration’s school lunch plan increased the requirement for fruits and vegetables in meals, cut trans-fat and reduced sodium levels in food. It also required cafeterias to serve only skim or low-fat milk.
In 2019, the first comprehensive analysis of the Obama administration’s lunch plan by the Department of Agriculture found the updates “had a positive and significant influence on nutritional quality” as students ate more whole grains, greens, and beans, as well as fewer “empty calories.”
However, the report also found evidence that levels of food waste were slightly higher than food waste under previous lunch regulations.
Mainstream media outlets were quick to note that the Trump Administration’s announcement happened to coincide with the former First Lady’s birthday.
WIBC host Tony Katz commented on the matter Monday morning:
“To force schools into certain lunches was a mistake. And then for schools to decide that what kids brought from home wasn’t good enough – making them take it out and throw it away and eat the lunch from the school – that was criminally insane. A parent makes lunch for their kid and the parent gets to decide.
‘Let’s Move’ was a good idea and a good policy. Kids need to get more exercise. But telling parents what their kids can and can’t eat for lunch? Terrible policy. So they made the change.
And it’s not like they got rid of fruits and vegetables. They are reducing the weekly requirements for serving orange and red vegetables such as carrots, tomatoes, or butternut squash. But they can replace those with potato products such as fries. It doesn’t mean that they will; it means that they can. The other foods weren’t even eaten.
But the way the media is spinning this as an attack on Michelle Obama? I didn’t vote to elect Barack Obama, and I don’t want Michelle Obama telling me what to feed my kid.”
Click the link below to hear more from Tony.
