Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared on the Congress blog website of The Hill.
Have you ever wondered how school administrators decide what goes into school lunches? As is the case with most federally run programs, there’s a thick stack of instruction papers for that. On the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s web page for the Food and Nutrition Services Department you can find a copy of the 81-page rule that sets nutrition standards.
According to the School Nutrition Association’s analysis and explanation of the latest rule for school lunch nutrition standards, the maximum number of calories a student in grades K-5 can have at lunch is 650. This is the first time in history the USDA has set a calorie cap on students.
The American Heart Association recommends that males age 9-13 should have 1,800 calories per day, with females that same age just behind them at 1,600. This means your average fifth grade boy that only eats lunch at school will need to get 1,150 calories per day either outside of school hours or by purchasing extra snacks. Those snacks are not covered for children receiving free or reduced lunches.
To that same effect, there have been several media reports claiming that children are complaining they are still hungry after lunch. This is unacceptable, and because this new rule is so overly prescriptive, teachers are left with the challenge of teaching hungry students.
Students and teachers aren’t the only ones suffering under this new rule. I have been contacted by a school director in my district that has had to resort to instructing his cafeteria staff to count out how many tater tots each student gets just so he’s in compliance with these new regulations.
At the heart of the issue — like so many issues facing our country today — is a fundamental difference about how much government control we need and how much we trust our parents to educate their children about nutrition. Those who advocated for and passed this change — including President Obama and many Democrats in Congress — believe that government needs to regulate people’s individual behavior and choices. This goes right down to the type of food schools choose to purchase and how much of that gets distributed to the kids in their care.
I trust parents and administrators, who work hard every day to take care of kids, to make good decisions about how much food our children eat and what food is served. That’s why I am a proud cosponsor of H.R. 6418, the No Hungry Kids Act. This legislation, introduced by Reps. Steve King and Tim Huelskamp, would repeal the calorie cap that was included as part of the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization passed by the previous Congress.
As a physician, I certainly understand the need to ensure our children and grandchildren are getting nutritious lunches. According to the Centers for Disease Control, childhood obesity has tripled in the last 30 years.
We must teach our children the importance of healthy eating habits and develop a new culture in our youth. Children should be encouraged to lead more physically active lives, educated on the importance of eating healthy, and presented with choices and opportunities that foster health education. I will work with those who want to empower parents to help their children choose a healthy lifestyle.
Congressman Phil Roe, R-Johnson City, represents the 1st District in Tennessee.
tarheel0306 writes:
October 3, 2012
9:04 AM
I applaud Congressman Roe's efforts to repeal this legislation. I do not feel it is the government's place to tell me how much or how little my child should eat. This is an issue between me and my child's pediatrician. Our school offers very nutritious options and my child knows what is healthy and what is not. Congress is not looking at the big picture. They want to restrict calories but at the same time our schools are all but eliminating PE classes. When I was in school, we had PE every day for 1 hour. My children have PE 30 minutes 1 time a week. Where is the logic in that. As far as restricting calories, not every child is the same and they all have varying metabolisms. Student athletes will burn more calories and therefore need to eat more calories. The issue here is not the amount of calories but the amount of nutrition. I support Phil Roe in repealing this waste of legislation.
TNtommy writes:
October 16, 2012
10:06 AM
It's shocking that a physician who recognizes the dramatic rise in childhood obesity and must know it is projected to double again in the next decade would oppose an attempt to slow or reverse that trend. The last two paragraphs of your opinion piece argue for the new guideline you oppose and against the legislation you support. Dr Roe, you should be leading the charge for meaningful change in healthy eating education and practice and not opposing those efforts on ideological grounds. If school lunches have not been part of the problem then the responsibility for the epidemic of child and adolescent obesity falls squarely on the shoulders of parents and families, because where else are children getting fed? But if your philosophy is that government has no role in preventing this crisis of personal choices then you are building us a future as a nation of fat slobs spending the bulk of our national wealth on avoidable illnesses and lost productivity. I propose a solution that might be more in keeping with your limited government, free market ideology; eliminate all medical coverage (private insurance, medicare, medicaid, etc.) for the health consequences of obesity (type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, arthritis and joint diseases, etc.). This approach would put the financial responsibility for our obesity epidemic on those who choose to overeat and removes them as a burden to a culture of obesity enablers.