Letter to USDA on Updating Child Nutrition Programs

May 2, 2023

School Meals Policy Division
Food and Nutrition Service
P.O. Box 9233 Reston,
Virginia 20195

Re: Document ID FNS-2022-0043-0001: Child Nutrition Programs: Revisions to Meal Patterns Consistent With the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Dear Madams and Sirs:

As two of the co-chairs of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Food and Nutrition Security Task Force, we are writing to strongly support the issuance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) proposed rule to update meal patterns for the school nutrition programs to better align them with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). BPC’s Food and Nutrition Security Task Force was established in 2021 with the goal of providing federal policy recommendations to improve food security and nutrition security through the federal nutrition programs. Its diverse membership includes bipartisan experts in nutrition science and policy, food systems, public health, health care, the charitable food sector, food industry and retail, and more.

In our 2022 policy brief, Strengthening the Child Nutrition Programs, the Task Force recommended a series of proposals aimed at improving nutrition security through the provision of food in schools, including maintaining, and, if possible, strengthening nutrition standards for all foods and beverages provided through the school nutrition programs to better align them with the latest DGA. Your proposed rule attempts to do just that. In particular, we are pleased that the proposed rule establishes nutrition standards for added sugars and updates the school meal standards for sodium, whole grains, and milk and includes a multi-year phase in of the updated standards to allow for gradual changes in the marketplace and of students’ taste preferences.

If implemented, the updated standards would make progress toward improving both food security and nutrition security for the nearly 30 million children who participate in the federal school meal programs each school day.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Dan Glickman
Former Secretary
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Bipartisan Policy Center
Co-Chair
BPC Food and Nutrition Security Task Force

Ann M. Veneman
Former Secretary
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Bipartisan Policy Center
Co-Chair
BPC Food and Nutrition Security Task Force