Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Visits California, Discusses Obama Administration Efforts to Improve School Meals

Press Release

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today visited California to discuss the Obama Administration's priorities for the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act. Vilsack visited with students and educators at the William R. Anton Elementary School and Early Education Center followed by a forum with community leaders at the East Los Angeles Community Center where he emphasized the importance of passing strong reauthorization legislation. Vilsack highlighted the Administration's goals of reducing hunger, promoting access, and improving the overall health and nutrition of children throughout the country. Joining Secretary Vilsack were stakeholders and public leaders including former Congressman Esteban Torres.

"We are presented with a unique opportunity to improve the health of our children and reduce hunger in this country and we can take a step towards accomplishing those goals with the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, said Vilsack. "The federal government cannot solve our hunger and obesity crises alone, and we need parents, educators, nutrition experts, and community leaders to be engaged in improving school meals and the health and nutrition of our children. Here at the Early Education and Community Centers we are reaching out directly to those that are on the front line of providing healthier meals, nutrition education and enabling more physical activity."

The Obama Administration has proposed a historic investment of an additional $10 billion over ten years starting in 2011 that will allow for the improvement of the quality of the School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs, increase the number of kids participating, and ensure schools have the resources they need to make program changes, including training for school food service workers, upgraded kitchen equipment, and additional funding for meal reimbursements for schools that are enhancing nutrition and quality. Additionally, this investment will allow additional fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy products to be served in our school cafeterias and an additional one million students to be served the healthy diets in school.

Already, the administration has taken steps to improve school meals, financed an initiative to reduce food deserts, developed new research tools that detail local food environments and health outcomes, including grocery store access and disease and obesity prevalence, and engaged a broad range of public/private partnerships to solve America's childhood obesity epidemic.

USDA is also collaborating with First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! initiative to emphasize the link between nutrition and physical activity. In addressing the School Nutrition Association this week, Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a call to action to parents, community leaders, schools and elected officials to improve the nutrition and physical activity habits of our children by working together to double the number of HealthierUS Schools across the country. The HealthierUS School Challenge recognizes schools that do an exceptional job promoting meal participation, meal quality, nutrition education, and physical activity.

By passing a strong reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, the Administration hopes to reduce hunger, promote access, and improve the overall health and nutrition of children throughout the country. Specific priorities in this area include:

* Improve nutrition standards. Establishing improved nutrition standards for school meals based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and taking additional steps to ensure compliance with these standards;
* Increase access to meal programs. Providing tools to increase participation in the school nutrition programs, streamline applications, and eliminate gap periods;
* Increase education about healthy eating. Providing parents and students better information about school nutrition and meal quality;
* * Establish standards for competitive foods sold in schools. Creating national baseline standards for all foods sold in elementary, middle, and high schools to ensure they contribute effectively to a healthy diet;
* Serve more healthy food. Promoting increased consumption of whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and low- and fat-free dairy products and providing additional financial support in the form of reimbursement rate increases for schools that enhance nutrition and quality;
* Increase physical activity. Strengthening school wellness policy implementation and promoting physical activity in schools;
* Train people who prepare school meals. Ensuring that child nutrition professionals have the skills to serve top-quality meals that are both healthful and appealing to their student customers;
* Provide schools with better equipment. Helping schools with financial assistance to purchase equipment needed to produce healthy, attractive meals.
* Enhance food safety. Expanding the current requirements of the food safety program to all facilities where food is stored, prepared and served.

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