{"id":1496978,"date":"2026-04-16T08:43:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T13:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?guid=8d465cda71aabc47f788bb27fab6d72c"},"modified":"2026-04-16T10:21:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:21:15","slug":"trump-admin-touts-new-dietary-guidelines-but-will-your-child-have-healthier-school-lunches-next-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1496978","title":{"rendered":"Trump admin touts new dietary guidelines, but will your child have healthier school lunches next fall?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Kids eating lunch at school (Tetra Images\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>

(NEW YORK) -- As President Donald Trump's administration touts its new federal dietary guidelines, experts and officials suggest there's a long road ahead before America\u2019s students have healthier school meals.<\/p>

With the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services partnering to address chronic disease -- aiming to place whole, nutrient-dense food at the center of diets -- the administration believes it has taken a major step toward solving America's youth health crises.<\/p>

From Secretaries Brooke Rollins and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, there\u2019s a full-scale push to make school meals healthier by next school year, but the USDA\u2019s former Food and Nutrition Service Administrator Cindy Long said their changes won't happen \"overnight.\"<\/p>

Long -- who was USDA\u2019s Deputy Administrator for Child Nutrition under former President Barack Obama and during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term -- told ABC News the Healthy-Hunger Free Kids Act, which is the school meals bill that was signed into law in 2010, ignited a shift to healthier school meals over a decade ago.<\/p>

Celebrating the newest dietary guidelines, the foundation of dozens of federal feeding programs, including school meals, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has said that her agency is submitting its proposed school meals rule by mid-spring. Meanwhile, implementing the meals in U.S. classrooms will see delays after the updated regulations, some health policy experts noted.<\/p>

Dr. David Ludwig, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, suggested the changes may take a while both in practice and culture.<\/p>

\u201cWe have to address this on many levels,\u201d Ludwig told ABC News, adding, \u201cFirst, improving the guidelines that regulate food quality in schools. That's foundational.\u201d<\/p>

Ludwig echoed the Trump administration\u2019s 2025-2030 guidelines, which are updated every five years, emphasizing that new school meal ingredients must reduce sugar and other processed carbohydrates and increase whole foods.<\/p>

\u201cLayer two is adequate funding so that not only healthful but delicious foods can be prepared,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cIt's critical for children to understand that we don't want to raise a generation that thinks healthy foods are going to be just bland.\u201d<\/p>

Updates will be made through formal rulemaking, the government\u2019s multi-step process that includes opportunities for public comment, to ensure USDA supports children\u2019s access to nutritious, high-quality meals at school, according to a USDA spokesperson.<\/p>

However, Long told ABC News that some of the President Joe Biden administration\u2019s changes to reduce added sugar and sodium to school meals are still being implemented.<\/p>

\u201cYou can't change this enormous system with 100,000 schools operating overnight,\u201d she said, adding \u201cYou've got to allow time for people to be successful, for people to change menus, for them to procure the right products, for industry to be able to produce products that will help them bring down the sodium, bring down the added sugar etc.\u201d<\/p>

White House Senior Advisor Calley Means told ABC News there will be a \u201cflurry\u201d of regulation changes this year that will bolster kids\u2019 meals at school. He bemoaned critics\u2019 concerns that the administration lacks the funding to make the necessary changes.<\/p>

\u201cThe government spends hundreds of billions of dollars on food procurement,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cWe do not have a budget issue. There's been a political will problem that President Trump and Bobby Kennedy and Brooke Rollins have solved. There's care about this issue. We're going to be driving common sense solutions.\u201d<\/p>

Parental control over school meals<\/strong><\/p>

University of Illinois Professor of Nutrition Dr. Donald Layman believes promoting healthier meal options -- like increased protein and the subtraction of ultra-processed foods -- signals a \u201ctotal sea change\u201d for parents.<\/p>

\u201cI think it gives parents a different structure,\u201d he told ABC News, adding, \u201cThey've been told that, well, eggs were bad for you, or that meats were bad for you, and they're left not knowing what to give their kids.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cI've always felt that the issue was, how do we empower parents to do what they know is right, but they've been told they shouldn't do,\u201d Layman added.<\/p>

Hilary Boynton -- a California mom and former head of nutrition services at her kids\u2019 school -- said, \u201cpeople are starting to recognize that they have agency over their own health and [they can] be empowered by that.\u201d<\/p>

In Summer Barrett\u2019s home state of West Virginia, a mom who says she's a part of the Make America Healthy Again Movement, said she\u2019s grown frustrated with school meals containing excess amounts of sugar in Dunkin' Stix Donuts breakfasts.<\/p>

\u201cYou're giving them 52 grams of sugar, and then you send them to class and you wonder, \u2018oh, why can't you sit still,\u2019\u201d Barrett said. \u201cWhy can't you learn? Why can't you focus?\" Well, cause you just jacked them up on more sugar than they should have in an entire day,\u201d she added.<\/p>

The new guidelines may signal that school meal changes are to come, thanks to MAHA moms like Barrett who have been \u201chungry for this nutrition science for a long time,\u201d according to FDA Commissioner Makary. Makary and Kennedy have already started visiting schools to help promote programs that serve scratch-cooked meals with Whole Foods like fruits and vegetables.<\/p>

Meanwhile, Cindy Long told ABC that the administration\u2019s changes will only build on prior policy wins.<\/p>

\u201cI'm hoping that this will just continue on the path of, sort of, continuing to make school meals stronger and stronger,\u201d she said.<\/p>

Copyright \u00a9 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kids eating lunch at school (Tetra Images\/Getty Images)(NEW YORK) — As President Donald Trump’s administration touts its new federal dietary guidelines, experts and officials suggest there’s a long road ahead before America\u2019s students have healthier s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2851,"featured_media":1496982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/04\/4f0562f8827b7c744f4c87343231da4e-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1445],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1496978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-health-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-05 21:13:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2026\/04\/4f0562f8827b7c744f4c87343231da4e-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1496978"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1496984,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1496978\/revisions\/1496984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1496982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1496978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1496978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1496978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}