Concannon: House proposal on school meals unlikely to become law
August 21, 2014 | 05:47 PM
By ALEX GANGITANO
and JERRY HAGSTROM
As he announced new federal help for schools to implement healthier meals rules, Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon today questioned whether the House proposal to require USDA to grant a waiver from the healthier school meal rules to any school that says its school meal program has lost money for six months will ever become law.
Kevin Concannon
“It is hard to reach enactment without support from Senate or the administration,” Concannon told The Hagstrom Report in a call to reporters about the new assistance USDA and other groups will provide school food service directors.
School food service directors and the companies that provide school foods have also said that proposed rules on salt would require too big a reduction, but Concannon said he does not expect salt to be an issue this year.
“It’s two years from now they are now more concerned about,” Concannon said. “If it looks like industry cannot meet [the proposed salt guideline], we will look at it.”
The Agriculture Department will provide new materials to help school food service directors adjust to healthier school meals and will relaunch its “HealthierUS School Challenge,” which recognizes and awards schools who are taking voluntary steps to encourage students to make healthy choices, he said.
At the end of August, USDA will distribute 2,500 toolkits and award $5.7 million in Team Nutrition programs to 20 state government agencies that administer the school lunch project to expand and enhance training programs, Concannon told reporters.
He also announced that 20 states will receive Team Nutrition grants, including many whose students and politicians have been critical of the healthier school meals rules. (See following story)
The assistance comes as the Obama administration begins the third year of implementing healthier school meal rules under the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. It requires schools to serve low-fat dairy and meat products, whole grains, and more fresh fruits and vegetables while reducing salt, sugar and fat. The biggest change this year is the implementation of the Smart Snacks rule, which says that snacks served during the school day must comply with the same guidelines.
The School Nutrition Association, which represents the school food service directors, and some Republicans in Congress have said the new rules have led to 1 million fewer children eating school meals, plus waste when students throw out food they are served but don’t eat, and budgetary problems in individual schools.
Concannon confirmed academic reports that students who have dropped out of the school lunch program are more likely to be white, middle-class and rural, as well as a School Nutrition Association statement that most of the students no longer buying school lunch are middle-class students paying the highest prices, rather than those receiving free or reduced price meals.
“We have made a change,” Concannon said. “It takes a while for student’s palates, [to adjust], just like adults. I believe we are going to prevail on the enrollment and participation numbers. Give us time. We’re in year three.”
More than 90 percent of school districts report they are successfully meeting the revised school meal requirements, he noted, although SNA has said that only means the schools filled out a form saying that they have changed their menus.
David Just
David Just, a professor of behavioral economics at Cornell and co-director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs (BEN), joined the call to explain that his center had used USDA funds to develop a “Smarter Lunchrooms” program, which provides tactics to get children interested in healthier foods.
These tactics include instead of “throwing vegetables or fruit on the serving lines,” placing it in an attractive bowl near the cash register or in slices, positioning white milk in front of chocolate milk, and giving healthier foods descriptive names, Just said.
BEN has also developed a scorecard which parents, students and school officials can consult to see if a food fits the nutritional guidelines.
“USDA is proud to support the Smarter Lunchroom movement that provides schools with practical, evidence-based tools that they can use to help their students have a healthier school day,” Concannon said.
New Smart Snacks in School nutrition standards are being implemented this school year, offering mainly fruits and vegetables.
Angela Stark
Angela Stark, a Lexington, Ky., middle school teacher and school ambassador with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, said that the snack shop at her school has been providing healthier options for a year and a half.
Stark acknowledged that the shop had lost 30 percent the first year, but that last year’s loss was lower, between 10 and 20 percent, as students got used to new and healthy items.
The shop previously had “mostly unhealthy food,” she said, but now students getting on the bus, athletes getting ready for practice and students going to after-school clubs, “are walking around with a banana, water and Chex Mix rather than Gatorade and a Snickers bar.”
Schools are still permitted to sell less healthy foods after school hours, but the
snack shop in the Lexington school is open only for 10 minutes after school so the issue of whether the shop can serve less healthy foods has not arisen, Stark said.
“There has been bad media about kids throwing out healthier items,” Stark added. “There is not that much food being thrown away and the food that is being thrown away is generally the sugary stuff.”
Concannon also noted that it is up to the states to make decisions about how many school fundraisers selling less healthy foods can be held in a school year.
Brian Weaver
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a private-sector group set up to support First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity, has developed a smart snacks calculator that can be used to figure out if a snack food meets USDA’s school guidelines, said Brian Weaver, the vice president of the alliance’s healthy schools program.
Noting that the alliance has worked with food and beverage companies since 2006 on healthier foods and has 1,000 products in its catalogue, Weaver said, “Let’s face it. Change is hard. That is why the alliance is committed to helping schools meet their goals this year.”
▪ USDA Food and Nutrition Service — HealthierUS School Challenge
▪ — Studies Find Widespread Student Acceptance of New Healthier School Lunches
▪ Smarter Lunchrooms Movement
▪ Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs
▪ Alliance for a Healthier Generation
and JERRY HAGSTROM
As he announced new federal help for schools to implement healthier meals rules, Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon today questioned whether the House proposal to require USDA to grant a waiver from the healthier school meal rules to any school that says its school meal program has lost money for six months will ever become law.
“It is hard to reach enactment without support from Senate or the administration,” Concannon told The Hagstrom Report in a call to reporters about the new assistance USDA and other groups will provide school food service directors.
School food service directors and the companies that provide school foods have also said that proposed rules on salt would require too big a reduction, but Concannon said he does not expect salt to be an issue this year.
“It’s two years from now they are now more concerned about,” Concannon said. “If it looks like industry cannot meet [the proposed salt guideline], we will look at it.”
The Agriculture Department will provide new materials to help school food service directors adjust to healthier school meals and will relaunch its “HealthierUS School Challenge,” which recognizes and awards schools who are taking voluntary steps to encourage students to make healthy choices, he said.
At the end of August, USDA will distribute 2,500 toolkits and award $5.7 million in Team Nutrition programs to 20 state government agencies that administer the school lunch project to expand and enhance training programs, Concannon told reporters.
He also announced that 20 states will receive Team Nutrition grants, including many whose students and politicians have been critical of the healthier school meals rules. (See following story)
The assistance comes as the Obama administration begins the third year of implementing healthier school meal rules under the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. It requires schools to serve low-fat dairy and meat products, whole grains, and more fresh fruits and vegetables while reducing salt, sugar and fat. The biggest change this year is the implementation of the Smart Snacks rule, which says that snacks served during the school day must comply with the same guidelines.
The School Nutrition Association, which represents the school food service directors, and some Republicans in Congress have said the new rules have led to 1 million fewer children eating school meals, plus waste when students throw out food they are served but don’t eat, and budgetary problems in individual schools.
Concannon confirmed academic reports that students who have dropped out of the school lunch program are more likely to be white, middle-class and rural, as well as a School Nutrition Association statement that most of the students no longer buying school lunch are middle-class students paying the highest prices, rather than those receiving free or reduced price meals.
“We have made a change,” Concannon said. “It takes a while for student’s palates, [to adjust], just like adults. I believe we are going to prevail on the enrollment and participation numbers. Give us time. We’re in year three.”
More than 90 percent of school districts report they are successfully meeting the revised school meal requirements, he noted, although SNA has said that only means the schools filled out a form saying that they have changed their menus.
David Just, a professor of behavioral economics at Cornell and co-director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs (BEN), joined the call to explain that his center had used USDA funds to develop a “Smarter Lunchrooms” program, which provides tactics to get children interested in healthier foods.
These tactics include instead of “throwing vegetables or fruit on the serving lines,” placing it in an attractive bowl near the cash register or in slices, positioning white milk in front of chocolate milk, and giving healthier foods descriptive names, Just said.
BEN has also developed a scorecard which parents, students and school officials can consult to see if a food fits the nutritional guidelines.
“USDA is proud to support the Smarter Lunchroom movement that provides schools with practical, evidence-based tools that they can use to help their students have a healthier school day,” Concannon said.
New Smart Snacks in School nutrition standards are being implemented this school year, offering mainly fruits and vegetables.
Angela Stark, a Lexington, Ky., middle school teacher and school ambassador with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, said that the snack shop at her school has been providing healthier options for a year and a half.
Stark acknowledged that the shop had lost 30 percent the first year, but that last year’s loss was lower, between 10 and 20 percent, as students got used to new and healthy items.
The shop previously had “mostly unhealthy food,” she said, but now students getting on the bus, athletes getting ready for practice and students going to after-school clubs, “are walking around with a banana, water and Chex Mix rather than Gatorade and a Snickers bar.”
Schools are still permitted to sell less healthy foods after school hours, but the
snack shop in the Lexington school is open only for 10 minutes after school so the issue of whether the shop can serve less healthy foods has not arisen, Stark said.
“There has been bad media about kids throwing out healthier items,” Stark added. “There is not that much food being thrown away and the food that is being thrown away is generally the sugary stuff.”
Concannon also noted that it is up to the states to make decisions about how many school fundraisers selling less healthy foods can be held in a school year.
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation, a private-sector group set up to support First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign against childhood obesity, has developed a smart snacks calculator that can be used to figure out if a snack food meets USDA’s school guidelines, said Brian Weaver, the vice president of the alliance’s healthy schools program.
Noting that the alliance has worked with food and beverage companies since 2006 on healthier foods and has 1,000 products in its catalogue, Weaver said, “Let’s face it. Change is hard. That is why the alliance is committed to helping schools meet their goals this year.”
▪ USDA Food and Nutrition Service — HealthierUS School Challenge
▪ — Studies Find Widespread Student Acceptance of New Healthier School Lunches
▪ Smarter Lunchrooms Movement
▪ Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs
▪ Alliance for a Healthier Generation
