Federal Bill to Serve Up Healthier School Lunches

Congress' vote last week to pass the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act likely will change what local schoolchildren eat for lunch and the types of snacks available.

The bill aims to reduce both obesity and hungerand improve children's prospects to live healthier over their lifetimes.

It provides an additional $4.5 billion for school lunches over a 10-year period, which is the first significant increase in federal child nutrition programs in 30 years. It also allows the Department of Agriculture to set nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools, whether in lunch programs or vending machines.

Supporters hailed it as a major step forward for childrens' health and nutrition, and President Obama is expected to sign it soon. 

"It's a very positive step. Hopefully, with this bill and the funding, we can help our children to live more healthy lives," said Barbara Fine, a licensed dietetic nutritionist who works with children at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. "Foods for children need to be more nutrient-rich, instead of empty calories, and this will help with that."

Providing such foods to students will help reduce obesity and establish healthier eating habits that will ideally last a lifetime, she added.

Fine also likes that the bill will mandate more nutritious foods in government programs like the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program and school lunches, without which many Americans would go hungry.

Fine, who works largely with juvenile diabetes patients, said the bill might mean school vending machines will carry items such as dried fruits, yogurt, nuts, granola bars, water and juice rather than candy and soda.

As a member of the American Dietetic Association, which strongly supported the legislation, Fine said she wrote to Congress to ask members to pass it. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat whose district includes Morton Grove, Niles, Skokie, Evanston and other parts of Chicago, voted for it.

Local school districts do not yet know how the bill would play out for them.

"I'm aware of the bill, but don't know yet what the impact will be for us," said David Bein, executive director of business services for East Maine School District 63, which includes parts of Niles, Morton Grove, Des Plaines and Glenview.

He recently heard a presenter from the National Education Association predict that suburban school districts can expect to pay more for students' food under the bill, but Bein stressed he was only repeating what the presenter told the audience.

"I've heard there's more money allocated and it's possible that will flow to the National School Lunch program," he said. "But the way the federal government usually works is that if they give you more, you have to do more."

In terms of time frames, Bein thought the legislation's effect would be felt more next school year.

In Illinois the contractual changes to a food service program are complicated, as the alternations need to be approved by the Illinois State Board of Education. That reduces the chances of major shift happening this year, though a simple menu change might get through, he said.

The Elk Grove Village-based American Association of Pediatrics issued a statement applauding Congress for passing the bill.

With one in four children in the U.S. struggling with hunger and one in three obese or overweight, this legislation could not come at a more critical time," Dr. O. Marion Burton, the association's president, said in a statement.

Burton praised the legislation for setting strict nutritional standards.

"The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act makes significant progress toward ending child hunger and obesity by expanding access to federal child nutrition programs and improving the nutritional value they provide," Burton said.

"In addition to reauthorizing federal child nutrition programs, the act will help address childhood obesity by reducing the fat and calorie content of school meals."