Beginning this school year, students must follow new guidelines set forth by The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kid Act of 2010.

“The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kid Act of 2010 was passed and addressed major changes in school lunch and breakfast as recommended by a specially appointed committee of the Institute of Medicine,” Director of Nutrition Services Shiela Brening said. “The intent is to try to curb the increasing obesity rates across the nation and to use the programs as educational teaching tools for future food choices made by students.”

New changes to the cafeteria include the requirement of having at least a one-half cup of fruit or vegetable, the requirement of at least 50 percent of all grains must be whole grains, a new array of vegetable sub-groups, fluid milk must be low-fat, flavored milk must be fat-free and the strict regulation of serving sizes.

“We still have minimum calories per meal based on age,” Brening said. “But now we have a maximum amount of calories we can serve per meal.”

“This has become a big problem since we are trying to give students as much food as possible,” Brening said.

Brening said the total amount offered throughout the week has decreased since last year.

In addition to the new guidelines, the easy to visualize tool, “MyPlate,” was developed to increase understanding of what should be chosen to create a healthy eating pattern.

According to Brening, the current obesity rate for the state of Kansas is 30 percent and many more Kansans are overweight.

Brening said being overweight or obese has been shown to be detrimental to health, especially if it continues throughout adulthood.

13chess@usd489.com