Schools brace for MAHA changes to lunches
by Lexi Lonas Cochran - 08/13/25 6:00 AM ET
The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement is taking aim at school lunches in a move advocates say is unrealistic without devoting more federal resources to K-12 students.
While some schools can only afford to buy frozen meals that are heated up and served, the Trump administration is looking for freshly cooked meals that will take more employees and ingredients to put together.
The MAHA Commission was required to send over recommendations to the White House by Tuesday to combat childhood chronic diseases, a document experts and advocates are eagerly awaiting. But three people familiar with the matter told CNN the report will not be released immediately to the public, keeping schools on their toes as it is expected to impact their food.
“We’re guessing at this point what we think that the report is going to say around school nutrition, but we have a few hints. RFK Jr. has said that school lunch programs have deteriorated. He’s mentioned how many ultraprocessed foods are in school meals. He’s suggested that school meals are poisoning children. … I think we’re all pretty much anticipating something around that,” said Meghan Maroney, campaign manager for federal child nutrition programs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has railed against school lunches before, saying the ultraprocessed food and food dyes are hurting student health. He has moved to ban artificial food dyes from the nation’s supply chain and has pushed fast food chains to cook their food in beef tallow over seed oils.
“We need to stop poisoning our kids and make sure that Americans are once again the healthiest kids on the planet,” Kennedy said in April.
He has celebrated states such as Utah, West Virginia and Arizona, where certain dyes and processed food were banned from school lunches.
But other moves by the Trump administration, advocates argue, have been counterintuitive to helping schools produce fresh meals.
The U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) in the spring ended two programs, totaling $1 billion, that helped schools buy food from local farmers and producers. USDA is in charge of the nutrition standards for the National School Lunch Program.
“They are being asked to create healthy and appealing meals on very slim budgets, and there have been things that have been happening recently that have taken away even more of their resources,” said Alexis Bylander, director of child nutrition programs and policy at the Food Research & Action Center.
“I think what this really comes down to is, are the recommendations going to provide enough resources so that schools really can enhance the quality and appeal of the meals that they are serving?” she added.
more
https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5448708-hhs-rfk-maha-school-lunches/
