MAHA’s Hopes for Healthier School Lunches Collide With Trump’s Spending Cuts
“We’re managing pennies.” Cafeterias are being pushed to serve healthier meals with less money.
Photo illustration: Rui Pu for Bloomberg Businessweek; photos: Getty Images
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made improving children’s diets a centerpiece of his 2024 presidential campaign, and his Make America Healthy Again movement helped propel President Donald Trump to a second term. The administration is soon expected to demand that schools upgrade the quality of their meals—a widely applauded goal—but it comes after 15 months of chipping away at the funding and programs schools have relied on to put that food on the table.
In January the Trump administration published revamped protein-rich, refined-carb-light Dietary Guidelines for Americans with much fanfare. While restaurants and home cooks are free to disregard the government’s nutritional advice, not so the 95,000 schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program. Sometime this spring the US Department of Agriculture is expected to publish regulations informed by the new guidelines that all schools will be expected to follow. Requirements will likely include more food cooked from scratch (though not necessarily on-site) and fewer ultraprocessed options, along with significantly less sugar, more protein and more whole grains.