Donald Trump is most likely the worst person to get a gift from; especially on your birthday.
Ask Michelle Obama, who saw — like everyone else — The Trump Administration proposing loosening her signature school lunch standards yesterday.
Trump’s Department of Agriculture’s proposed rule would give schools more latitude to decide how much fruit to offer during breakfast and what types of vegetables to include in meals. It will also broaden what is considered as a snack.
Sonny Perdue, the agriculture secretary, said the changes would “empower schools.”
“Schools and school districts continue to tell us that there is still too much food waste and that more common-sense flexibility is needed to provide students nutritious and appetizing meals,” Perdue said in a press release. “We listened and now we’re getting to work.”
Fighting childhood obesity was the Forever First Lady’s signature issue, and according to Harvard University’s School of Public Health nutrition professor Juliana Cohen, the efforts “improved the diets of millions of children, especially vulnerable children in food-insecure households.”
“Food waste was a problem before the healthier standards were enacted, so rolling them back won’t solve that problem,” Cohen shared with the New York Times. “It’s just that more people are paying attention to the issue now.”
Mrs. Obama’s 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act required schools to serve children fruits and vegetables every day and to offer more whole grain-rich foods and fat-free or low-fat milk. School meal providers were also required to limit calories and reduce saturated fat, trans fat, and sodium.
But if Trump & Co. get their way, that will be a thing of the past.
This rule change would lead school kids to switch out balanced lunch options for “pizza, burgers, french fries” and other junk foods, Colin Schwartz, deputy director of legislative affairs for Center for Science in the Public Interest, dished to the Washington Post.
Last June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that of 13.7 million American children, 18.5 percent are considered obese. Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks had a higher obesity prevalence than non-Hispanic whites.
According to the Department of Agriculture, the proposed changes will remain open for public comment for 60 days once they are published in the Federal Register.
And the announcement of the dismantling of Obama’s program on her 56th birthday was allegedly just a coincidence.
An Agriculture Department spokesperson told the New York Daily News that the “USDA did not intentionally announce this proposed rule” on the same day.