Public Health Nutrition Editorial Highlight: ‘Changes to dietary and health outcomes following implementation of the 2012 updated US Department of Agriculture school nutrition standards: analysis using National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2005–2016’ is available to access for free until 14th August.

Prior to the closing of public schools due to COVID-19 in the United States, federally-subsidized school meals served almost 30 million children annually. Of those, two-thirds ate free meals. In the past, school feeding programs in America focused on addressing food insecurity. However, in recent decades, they have had to contend with both food insecurity and rising childhood obesity. This was one motivation for updating the school nutrition standards, de facto nutrition requirements for all federally-subsidized school meals last revised in 1995. In the 2012-2013 school year, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) implemented new school nutrition standards, which increased the amount and variety of fruits and vegetables, limited flavored milks and sodium content, required whole grain-rich meals, and for the first time ever, set maximum calorie limits for meals.

We used data from 9,172 K-12 students who participated in the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005-2016 to study the impact of the updated school nutrition standards. We compared changes in weekday fruit and vegetable intake, weekday empty calories (measured by solid fats and added sugars), and rates of overweight and obesity between students who ate school lunch daily and students who never ate school lunch before and after implementation of the new standards. We also looked at these changes within different racial/ethnic groups.

Our results show that updated nutrition standards were associated with a reduction in empty calorie intake in K-12 students. While we were not able to detect a change in fruit and vegetable intake in the overall group, we saw gains in black students and other minority students not identifying as black or Hispanic. Though trends in overweight and obesity continued to increase in our study sample over time, the rate of increase was slower in students who eat school lunch after implementation of the updated school nutrition standards.

In January 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US, the USDA proposed amendments to relax the 2012 school nutrition standards. When school cafeterias eventually open again, many more students will be food-insecure. Both increases in unemployment and grocery food prices will exacerbate families’ abilities to eat healthy, balanced diets. The availability and quality of federally-subsidized school meals is likely to be even more significant to the future health of the nation’s children during this new recession. Our study shows that the updated school nutrition standards contributed to less empty calorie intake in K-12 students and increased fruit and vegetable intake in certain racial/ethnic groups, findings that are likely to beneficially impact the long-term risks of chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. Furthermore, rising trends in childhood obesity may have been slowed by the new school nutrition standards. These are all gains that do not support currently proposed amendments to the school nutrition standards. The nutritional value of school meals is important to the wellbeing of US school children, and this is especially true during this time of economic recession.

Access the full article here by Jenny Jia, Lynn L Moore, Howard Cabral, Amresh Hanchate and Marc R LaRochelle. Click Here to view all Editorial Highlights from Public Health Nutrition.