Sugar-Loaded USDA School Meals

by, Claire McDonnell Liu, Nutritionist

The vast majority of school meals served as part of the government’s National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs exceed the recommended amounts of sugar, according to “Added Sugars in School Meals and Competitive Foods,” a report submitted to Congress earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (USDA-FNS) . 

Image credit: Agri-Pulse

Current nutrition standards for school meals do not include a limit on added sugar.  Although national school programs are required by law to follow the nation’s main policy on nutrition, called the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), school standards on added sugar are still based on a rule dating from 2012. This is despite the subsequent publication of two editions of the DGA that include a limit on added sugars at 10% of total calories.

The USDA report found that 92% of meals in the School Breakfast Program (SBP) exceeded this added sugar limit, as did nearly 69% lunch meals in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The findings are based on an analysis originally published in February 2021, as “Added Sugars in School Meals and the Diets of School-Age Children,“ in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrients. 

A petition by several groups earlier this year to the USDA set out the legal and child health implications of not implementing a specific percentage-of-calories cap on the added sugar requirement. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, American Heart Association, and American Public Health Association stated in their petition that “an added sugars standard is both a statutory requirement and a regulatory gap with significant implications for students’ health.”

Main Sources of Added Sugar in School Foods

Flavored, fat-free milk, such as strawberry and chocolate milks, were found to be the main source of added sugars in school meals, accounting for 47% of the added sugars in lunches and 29% in breakfasts.  

The USDA requires that schools serve milk twice daily.  A single serving of flavored milk may contain between 4 and 6 teaspoons of sugar, which can lead to excessive sugar if flavored milk is regularly consumed. “Children who drink chocolate milk twice a day consume about 80 grams of added sugar each week. This is more than six pounds of sugar per child each school year,” notes the NYC Health Department Center for Health Equity. 

Other leading sources of added sugars in the school breakfasts program are cereals, toppings (e.g., jams and jelly), baked goods (e.g., muffins, pastries, buns), cereal bars and flavored yogurts. 

In lunches, the major sources of added sugars, aside from flavored milks, were condiments, toppings, canned fruit, rice cereal bars, low-fat cookies, and low-fat ice-creams and sherbets, some of which have between 27% and 54% of calories from added sugars.
School Food Sugar Standards

The principal standards governing school meals come from the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA), which requires offering fruits, vegetables, low-fat or fat-free milk, whole grains and lean proteins with every meal, while limiting sodium, total calories and fats overall. 

USDA Approved school snacks high in added sugars

Significantly, there is no numeric cap for total or added sugars in school meals. Instead, school program meals are intended — but not required — to align with Dietary Guidelines recommendations, as noted above. The 2021 Nutrients analysis was the first to examine levels of added sugars in school meals. 

All other foods and drinks sold in schools outside of mealtimes, such as snacks sold in school stores, kiosks or in vending machines, are called "competitive foods” and must follow a different set of standards, called “Smart Snacks in Schools.” These foods must contain less than 35% of total weight from sugar. 

Harmful Childhood Exposure to Added Sugars

School food is important not only for children’s health but also for establishing healthy eating habits throughout a lifetime, according to the Nutrients article. Children who eat school breakfast and lunch meals are reported to receive nearly half of their daily calorie intake from school meals. 

The USDA provided around 7 billion school meals to almost 30 million students in 2019. Nearly 88% of school meals were provided to low-income students for free or at a reduced price in 2020. Through the school meal programs, the USDA has a substantial opportunity to positively influence child health and eating behaviors by limiting children’s exposure to added sugar in school. 

Obesity among children and adolescents in the U.S. is a serious problem. Approximately 14.7 million children and adolescents (19.7%) have obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Early exposure to added sugars among children “has been associated with increased weight gain/adiposity, poor diet quality, dental caries, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.” 

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends under 25 grams (about 6 teaspoons) of added sugar per day for children age two and older. “Eating and drinking too much added sugar puts kids at risk for obesity, tooth decay, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease, among other health problems,” says AAP.

Image Credit: American Heart Association

Calls for Action on Sugar in Schools

A report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), called the “School Meals Corporate Report Card 2021,” urges the USDA to establish an added-sugars standard limiting added sugars in school foods. CSPI proposes to limit sugar intake on a weekly basis, similar to standards for saturated fat and sodium. 

The Nutrients’ authors call for the USDA to consider establishing limits on sugar content in cereal and bakery food items. Another strategy may be to limit the frequency of these foods in planned menus.

The White House National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, launched September 2022, has promised to end hunger in the U.S. by the year 2030 and reduce the toll of diet-related diseases. The detailed national strategy sets out plans to achieve these aims, including to leverage the USDA’s Child Nutrition Programs, the national school meal programs being the major ones, to promote healthy habits. Plans include updating food nutrition procurement criteria to align with the government’s voluntary sodium targets and to "consider the inclusion of added sugars limits”. However, no clear plans to tackle added sugar in school program meals have been included to date.

In Summary

Overconsumption of added sugars is a significant child health concern. Despite this, there is no set limit to the amount of sugar a child can consume in USDA’s school lunches or breakfasts, or in competitive foods and drinks sold at schools.

Report findings show that school meals and snacks are excessively high in sugar and exceed the Dietary Guidelines’ limit on sugar, as intended by the USDA meal program nutrition standards.