Evaluation of the Updated Federal Nutrition Standards for School Meals - PROJECT SUMMARY In the United States (U.S.), approximately 1 in 5 children have obesity, and children who are from families with socioeconomic disadvantages and/or who are racial/ethnic minorities experience disproportionately higher rates of obesity. While healthier dietary patterns are associated with the prevention and/or treatment of obesity, few children meet dietary recommendations. Therefore, policies that improve children’s dietary intakes while addressing disparities by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status are critical. In April 2024, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced major updates to the nutritional standards for the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program, which feed over 30 million children each school day (with the majority of these children coming from low-income households and receiving free or reduced-priced school meals). These standards better align school meals with the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs). They include, for the first time in history, a limit on added sugars in school meals, as well as stronger sodium limits. Evaluating the impact of these updated standards— including school meal compliance, product reformulation, school meal participation, student diet quality and dietary disparities, and children’s BMI— can make a significant contribution to the field and inform future opportunities to further strengthen school meal nutritional standards. Thus, in this time-sensitive proposal, we propose to evaluate the impact of these updated nutritional standards. Our study will first examine compliance with the new standards and potential product reformulation using 3 months of detailed menu data (e.g., production records, recipes, and nutrition labels) from 24 schools across 4 states before and after implementation of the updated standards (Aim 1). Next, we will examine the impact of the updated standards on school meal participation rates by analyzing school-level, state-wide school meal participation data annually from n=14 state Child Nutrition Programs (Aim 2). Third, we will examine the impact of the updated standards on students’ dietary intakes by collecting pre- and post-policy plate waste measurements from n=2,400 elementary students at n= 24 schools across 4 states for breakfast and lunch (Aim 3). Lastly, as an exploratory aim, we will examine the impact of the updated standards on BMI using data from a nationally representative sample of school-aged children. The new standards begin a phased implementation starting July 1, 2025. Without funding in this round, we will miss the only opportunity to collect baseline data and we will be unable to conduct a rigorous evaluation of this new national policy. This will be the first study to provide empirical evidence on the impact of a national school meal policy to limit added sugars and reduce sodium levels to align more closely with the DGAs. Overall, this study is a unique opportunity to evaluate a potentially high-impact national policy to improve school meals for millions of children, and may inform best practices with the policy’s phased implementation as well as future school meal policies at the local, state, and national levels.
