U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced plans on Monday to allow for more local control over nutritional requirements for school lunches in an attempt to provide healthier and better-tasting meals to students. This rollback of federal nutritional guidelines is a dismissal of the standards Michelle Obama helped to create.
“This announcement is the result of years of feedback from students, schools, and food service experts about the challenges they are facing in meeting the final regulations for school meals,” Perdue said in a statement Monday. “If kids aren't eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren't getting any nutrition – thus undermining the intent of the program.”
Medical ethicist and Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center Art Caplan says the secretary's decision could be detrimental to the health of students.
“The french fries are coming back to the lunchroom,” said Caplan on Boston Public Radio Wednesday. “It does seem to me that this is a bad way to go.”
Under this new proclamation, local agencies will be able to create the guidelines for whole grains, sodium, and milk. Caplan believes that these changes are being made to appease the monetary interests of the food industry, not to create healthier meals for kids.
“There is a ton of pressure to get rid of the food guidelines because of the food industry, the biggest food makers, want to get their products in [the schools] because that is when you develop habits, and that's when you get everybody used to eating that stuff,” Caplan said.
In addition, he does not see a reason to change nutritional requirements just because kids aren’t eating the food. Caplan said he thinks that the only way to get kids to eat healthy food is by making them eat healthy food, regardless of how much they like it.
“You have to change the habits," Caplan said. "It is worth making the effort.”
Click above to listen to our interview with medical ethicist and Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center Art Caplan in its entirety.
