Over the past few years, the spiraling rate of childhood obesity has thrust the issue of school nutrition into a national spotlight. Nineteen million American school children, including 78% of Houston ISD students, receive free and reduced priced school meals, which are often their only meals of the day. Until the new nutritional standards were mandated, the typical fare, bursting with sodium, fat and sugar, practically guaranteed poor health for the kids who depended on it. Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 with bipartisan support to help ensure that every American child has access to the nutrition they need to grow into healthy adults.
Unfortunately, all of these efforts will be destroyed on Thursday if a House appropriations bill is approved that guts the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. It includes a waiver to allow schools to opt out of complying with all school meal standards if they are able to show any decline in revenue over six months, no matter what caused the decline.
Rather than ensuring that lunch trays are loaded with fresh vegetables, fruit and whole grains and menus are low in sugar and sodium, we will throw the door open to invite junk food and high-calorie beverages right back into our school cafeterias, along with all the chronic poor health those foods guarantee.
This is unacceptable. We want a healthy future for all American kids.
Tell Congress to stop playing politics with our children's health.
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