Michelle Obama Continues To Fight For Healthier School Lunches, Despite Critics

Michelle Obama is fighting a House bill that would allow local districts to skip new school lunch health requirements for a year. She has said she will “to fight until the bitter end” to protect the new nutritional standards and her anti-childhood obesity campaign.

The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 was the corner stone Michelle Obama’s push to make government subsidized school lunches more nutritious. The act requires more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and puts limits on the amount of sugar, fat, and sodium in a meal.

The regulations have come under criticism from the GOP and others, resulting in debates that edged on comical, including if pizza sauce is a vegetable.

Now, a new bill to fund the Department of Agriculture also comes with provision to allow districts to take a pass on the nutritional standards for one year, a measure First Lady Obama says will undermine the 2010 act.

Michelle Obama said in an op-ed piece for the New York Times, “Remember a few years ago when Congress declared that the sauce on a slice of pizza should count as a vegetable in school lunches? You don’t have to be a nutritionist to know that this doesn’t make much sense. Yet we’re seeing the same thing happening again with these new efforts to lower nutrition standards in our schools. Our children deserve so much better than this.”

Republican House Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama, the author of the new House measures, says the nutritional standards have gone too far and school districts have not had a chance to adapt.

“As well-intended as the people in Washington believe themselves to be, the reality is that from a practical standpoint these regulations are just plain not working out in some individual school districts.”

The School Nutrition Association, which represents cafeteria works and has industry backing, was originally in favor Michelle Obama’s new nutritional standards, but are now taking a different stand. The new healthier school lunches have proven more difficult to sell, forcing local districts to lose money.

The association has stated that one million less students purchase school lunches since the standards went into effect.

“How can we call these standards a success when they are driving students away from the program?” said School Nutrition Representative Diane Pratt-Heavner.

The association hopes the new measures being proposed by the House might allow some flexibility for school districts that are losing money.

A vote on the House bill is expected after the 4th of July break.

No matter what happens, the GOP and Michelle Obama will most likely continue to fight over school lunch standards.

(Image Credit: Carolyn Kastor/AP Photo)