It turns out the program significantly reduced obesity among kids living in poverty.

The Covid crisis has highlighted how many kids rely on those school meals as part of their diet. Those meals had gotten healthier under Obama-era regulations, and it significantly reduced obesity among those kids who relied on those meals.

Trump undid those regulations. We can assume what the impact will be.


For children in poverty, however, the risk of obesity declined substantially each year after the act’s implementation, such that obesity prevalence would have been 47 percent higher in 2018 if there had been no legislation. These results suggest that the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act’s science-based nutritional standards should be maintained to support healthy growth, especially among children living in poverty.

T The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) began phasing in the HHFKA policy changes in the 2012–13 school year, and research suggests that these changes have been a public health success. Adherence to the new meal and snack standards has been high, and students consume more fruit, vegetables, and whole grains and fewer starchy vegetables than before the revision. At the same time, studies have found no increases in food waste or reductions in students’ participation in the National School Lunch Program.

Despite these public health gains and implementation success, there has been substantial industry and political pushback to the HHFKA, with some organizations claiming that its nutrition standards for school meals and snacks must be weakened in order to reduce supposed food waste and compliance burdens. Within the past several years, whole-grain standards have been relaxed, although this rule change was recently vacated by a federal judge at the US District Court for the District of Maryland. Additional rollbacks, besides the whole-grain standards, have been proposed. A proposed rule published in January 2020 would allow schools to serve fewer nonstarchy fruits and vegetables and sell more pizza, hamburgers, and fries, among other changes.