Child Nutrition Act Approved

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry unanimously approved Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 reauthorizing childhood nutrition programs. The bipartisan legislation invests $4.5 billion in new child nutrition program funding over the next ten years.
“This legislation invests in new initiatives to enroll more children in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs, provide options for high poverty schools to offer universal free meal service to children and, for the first time in nearly 40 years, increase the reimbursement rate for the National School Lunch Program,” Lincoln said. “I was proud all of my Republican and Democratic colleagues voted to support this bill that puts us on the path to ending childhood hunger and addressing the epidemic of childhood obesity.”
The bill takes a critical step to address the epidemic of childhood obesity with a provision to create national school nutrition standards for all foods sold on school campuses throughout the school day. The provision requires the Secretary of Agriculture, through a transparent regulatory process, to establish national nutrition standards consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans for all foods sold on school campuses throughout the school day. Current regulations limiting the sale of foods sold in schools are very narrow and have not been updated in almost 30 years.