The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement is focusing on school lunches, a move that advocates argue is unrealistic without devoting more federal resources to K-12 students. The MAHA Commission was required to send recommendations to the White House by Tuesday to combat childhood chronic diseases, but experts and advocates are eagerly awaiting the report. Advocates argue that the Trump administration has been counterintuitive to helping schools produce fresh meals, as the USDA ended two programs that helped schools buy food from local farmers and producers. In Oklahoma, Ryan Walters, the state superintendent of public instruction, has already been working on implementing the MAHA agenda in school food, saying schools can no longer serve food that is ultraprocessed or grown with pesticides and processed snacks in vending machines.
Schools would have to pay for more employees to make the food and, in some cases, acquire equipment to handle making fresh food for hundreds of students every day. Some are hoping for a definitive set of markers to build upon for what types of food should be served and what the cost will be. School food is the healthiest many students eat, and for some, it might be the only full meal they get in a day. As food insecurity rates increase, school meals become one of the last remaining universal public school services that are reaching every child, nearly in America.
