School lunches could be getting a nutritional overhaul, and just like at dinnertime, kids may be pushed to eat their veggies. Dr. Virginia Stallings is the director of the nutrition center at the famous Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and she was in charge of the group that put together the list of recommendations.
Stallings spoke to John Roberts on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday. Below is an edited transcript of that interview.
John Roberts: Let's take a look at the recommendations that you're coming up with here. First of all, more fruit at breakfast, more vegetables at lunch. You also have an indication here that you want to limit starchy vegetables. Also, more whole grains, low fat milk, less sodium. The goal among high school students is to reduce the sodium intake by 50% over ten years, and no skipping of vegetables. It sounds like a no-brainer and sounds like something that we try to do every day.
Virginia Stallings: Very good. Well, I think the committee would agree with you, but we do see this as the beginning of a very good start in overhauling the school lunch and breakfast programs. With this, we really will align what we know in nutrition, science, and child health, and make this really large, important program support those two components.
Roberts: So there's a big difference between what students should eat and what they want to eat or what they do eat. So how do we get them to get on board with this idea of healthy choices?
Stallings: Well, you know, it's an important part of the whole program now. We've learned that students are pretty sophisticated consumers. So we've got to balance this. The children and the families will all be asked to be a part of really thinking about the menus, even doing taste testing. Those sorts of things. And then we also know that for children of all ages, that being exposed to foods over and over again ultimately will help with the acceptance. … The last part is we hope that we can combine some of the new foods with some of the other activities in school, so that they can be part of science class or French class or whatever.
Roberts: You also are suggesting putting caloric limits on school lunches as well as breakfast and grading them on age and development. For example, K-5, you're recommending that lunches be limited to 650 calories; grades 6-8, 700 calories; 800 calories for high school; and for breakfast, respectively for the same grade levels, 500, 550, and 600 calories. How far can a school lunch program go in battling the obesity epidemic in this country?
Stallings: Well, one of the important things the new recommendations address is that we want to keep enough calories and quality food in the program for children that may not have enough food, who come from families where food resources may be scarce. On the other hand, one of the things that has changed in the last 20 years is the obesity epidemic in pediatrics. So we will now have both a minimum and a maximum, so a range. So we'll be able to support the safety net, if you will, and continue to be watchful about not providing too many calories in the school setting.
Roberts: Let me come back to one of the recommendations that we highlighted at the beginning, this idea of lowering sodium with the target of trying to reduce in the next ten years the average sodium intake of a high school student by 50%. How important is it to lower sodium intake?
Stallings: Well, we know, as a country, we're all taking in more sodium than is probably best for our health. And some people in particular are very sodium sensitive for things like high blood pressure; that leads to a lot of other chronic illnesses. The committee believes that in the school setting, we can make these reductions with the help of the food industry to come up with some products designed specifically for children and to really go back and look at the recipes and the foods that are being offered in school. Ten years was important because this was the one change that everybody understands can't be made that quickly.
Roberts: When you consider the sources of sodium that we have in our diet every day and how much sodium there is in things like – I mean, if you have cereal, a cup of cereal is pretty much 190 milligrams of sodium. Then you put milk in, that's another almost 200 milligrams of sodium. So you've got close to a quarter of your RDA right there just with your breakfast cereal. What does this do, doctor, to the cost? Healthy foods are more expensive than unhealthy foods. School lunch programs have always had funding problems. There are school districts across the country who are giving cheese sandwiches to students whose parents can't afford to pay for their lunch, which is both unhealthy and stigmatizing. What are you going to do to affect the costs here?
Stallings: Well we do recognize, and it was clear as we went through this process, that there will be some incremental cost. There will be a little more cost specifically to provide more fruits and vegetables. And these costs will really be borne by a number of components of the program. There will be a question of whether the federal government will increase the reimbursable fee. Also, state and local governments might be asked to consider things like adding the necessary refrigerators and freezers. And then we've got to do a lot of training for the school food service people as they make really a monumental change in how we are both providing and monitoring school lunch and breakfast.