What Are the New Updates to the School Nutrition Requirements in 2024?

Last week (April 2024), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued new rules for the nutrient content of the national school lunch program (in addition to school breakfast and childcare programs)—and it’s about time.¹

Nutrition changes to school meals started in 2010 with the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, championed by Barack and Michelle Obama, but there is still much to be done.

Now, the USDA has finalized the new added sugar and sodium regulations for the national school lunch program requirements. However, many of the original propositions were weakened (like the sodium reduction) or eliminated (like the removal of flavored milk) due to over 136,000 public comments and feedback from food companies.

New USDA School Nutrition Standard Updates

If you can believe it, there have not been any added sugar limits on school meals until now—let’s take a closer look at what else is going to change.

Added Sugar

Starting at the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, the new USDA limits for added sugar will be implemented in two phases.²

Phase 1: (To be implemented for the school year 2025-26, beginning July 1, 2025)

• Breakfast cereals may have no more than 6 grams of added sugars per dry ounce.
• Yogurt may have no more than 12 grams of added sugars per 6 ounces (2 grams of added sugars per ounce).
• Flavored milk may have no more than 10 grams of added sugars per 8 fluid ounces or, for flavored milk sold as a competitive food for middle and high schools, 15 grams of added sugars per 12 fluid ounces.

Phase 2: (To be implemented by the school year 2027-28, beginning July 1, 2027)

• Overall limit of added sugars to less than 10 percent of calories across the entire week in the school lunch and breakfast programs.

However, the USDA attempted to reduce added sugar even further by eliminating chocolate, strawberry, or other flavored milk—but the pushback was too extreme, and they kept it in. They also proposed a limit on grain-based desserts at breakfast (yep, breakfast desserts), but that was not accepted either.³ 

Advocates for keeping flavored milk in schools state that milk is an important source of protein, calcium, and vitamin D for children and that they prefer flavored milk to plain milk (can we say duh?).

Proponents of the flavored milk removal (yours truly included) say that the added sugar in chocolate/strawberry milk (typically 8-16 grams per carton) at breakfast (plus the sugary cereals and yogurts) is not a healthy way for kids to start the school day and stay focused in class. As the added sugar recommendation for children is less than 25 grams per day, a carton of chocolate milk could be more than half that.⁴

Some brands of strawberry milk also contain artificial coloring (like Red 40), which may be problematic for children with attention deficit or hyperactivity disorders.⁵

While reducing the added sugar in flavored milk (soon to be no more than 10 grams of added sugars per 8 fluid ounces) is a good step, eliminating flavored milk from schools entirely would be more beneficial.

Plus, if flavored milk is removed as an option, I don’t think kids would take long to adjust to regular milk. But when both options are present, of course, most children will opt for the sugary one. As a quick aside, kids probably don’t love drinking plain milk because it’s watery, non-fat or 1% milk. As of about a decade ago, whole milk was taken off the menu to reduce calorie and saturated fat consumption—but that might not be doing what they intended. According to this study, kids aged 9 to 14 who drank skim and 1% milk gained excess weight, but consuming dairy fat was not associated with weight gain.⁶ If it were up to me, I would offer plain, whole milk—let’s focus on reducing the sugar, not the dairy fat.

Sodium

Beginning in July 2027, the new sodium content of school meals will be reduced by 15% at lunch and 10% at breakfast compared to current limits.⁷ 

Similar to the sugar updates, the USDA proposed stricter reductions (including three consecutive 10% sodium reductions over the next five years for a total of 30% lower from now), but parents and food companies resisted again. 

The recommendations differ based on age, but here’s one example: School lunch sodium limits for kids in grades K-5 are currently 1,110 milligrams. Starting in 2027, the limit will be 935mg.

However, this doesn’t start to take place until 2027. The USDA is allowing three years for the sodium reduction to be implemented in response to public comments saying it takes that long for manufacturers to reformulate their products.  

According to the USDA, public commenters also “raised concerns that students’ consumption of higher sodium foods outside of school can impact their acceptance of lower-sodium school meals.”⁷

This is slightly backward thinking. They’re saying that because the other food that kids eat is so sodium-laden at home, they need their school food to be equally salty for them to enjoy it. 

How about instead of having increasingly salty school food, we work on improving the health and sodium reduction of their at-home food?! While no one likes bland and unseasoned vegetables, focusing on reducing the sodium content from ultra-processed and snack foods would have a bigger impact on overall intake than not salting their string beans. 

The Bottom Line

It’s easier said than done to overhaul a nationwide school breakfast and lunch program—I get that. Many schools are vastly underfunded, have staff shortages, or have limited equipment to cook “real food” for these healthy meals. 

Acceptability is also an issue, but from my point of view, elementary age is the time for children to learn about and begin accepting healthier foods. Kids who don’t eat vegetables and love sugar and salt become adults who don’t eat vegetables and love sugar and salt—and might become the same adults influencing the nutritional guidelines for school meal programs.

Children in most other countries around the world do perfectly fine with eating vegetables, fruits, beans, whole grains, and unflavored milk—why can’t ours?⁸ 

A staggering one-third of U.S. children are now overweight or obese. As over 28 million kids eat meals at school each day, making those 5-10 meals per week healthier and lower in sugar and sodium can only do good things.^9,10