School started for many American children this month, but their new teachers weren't the only change on the first day school meals got an overhaul over the summer. Back in January, the USDA released a new set of nutrition standards for school meals that are intended to significantly improve the nutritional quality of the food our children are served for breakfast and lunch. Now that school has started, kids across the nation should be seeing more fruits and vegetables, a greater variety of vegetables, more whole grain options and lower fat milk in their schools' cafeterias. There are now also calorie maximums in place for each meal, in addition to the calorie minimums that were required before. Also, starting Oct. 1 school districts that are meeting the updated school meal standards will receive an additional 6 cents per lunch in federal funding to support their efforts to provide healthier school meals. Schools that will receive this additional funding are doing things like the Hillsborough School District in Tampa, Fla., which, according to USA TODAY, is serving new entrees such as black-bean vegetarian wraps and sweet-potato-encrusted fish topped with pineapple salsa. The upgrades in the nutritional quality of school meals are taking place during National Child Nutrition Month. To complement the healthier school meals, ACS CAN is also advocating for the implementation of science-based nutrition standards for foods and beverages served in schools that aren't part of school meals. We're also working to increase the quantity and quality of physical education in schools, as well as the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to youth. Have you noticed a change in your children's school meals? What are meals like? Evidence shows that approximately one-third of all cancer deaths are attributable to poor diet, physical inactivity and overweight and obesity. These new school nutritional standards take a stride towards tackling the childhood obesity epidemic facing our country.
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Even as Breast Cancer Awareness Month comes to a close, ACS CAN will keep working year-round, across the country and with both state and federal lawmakers, to advance the public policies we know will reduce the burden of breast cancer.