By Cora LeCates NJ State House News Service
Senate lawmakers on June 5 backed a return to healthful subsidized school meals amid President Donald Trump’s budget cuts for fruits, vegetables, whole grains and other obesity-fighting ingredients.
In a unanimous vote, the Senate Education Committee released S2167, which would make New Jersey school breakfasts and lunches adhere to standards set by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.
The President Barack Obama-era initiative boosted fresh food and restricted trans fats, sodium and calories. Almost 371,000 New Jersey students in 2023-24 received free or reduced-price lunches, according to the Kids Count data tracker of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. New Jersey school-meal sources include 46 New Jersey-based farmers, according to Governor Phil Murphy’s office.
Under the Obama standards, children’s risk for obesity – a contributor to diabetes, high blood pressure and other chronic ills – dropped nationally, according to a 2020 study published in the scholarly journal HealthAffairs.org. The trend, though, reversed during the pandemic. In New Jersey, a 2024 study by the New Jersey Hospital Association’s Center for Health Analytics, Research and Transformation found that from 2017-2022, obesity/overweight diagnoses jumped 236% for emergency room patients under 18.
In March, the Trump administration canceled roughly $660 million nationally for the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, citing wasteful spending. The cuts “severely limit student access to healthy meals,” according to the School Nutrition Association, an Arlington, Virginia-based lobbying and research group.
Trevor Martindale, the New Jersey government relations director for the American Heart Association, called New Jersey a leader on school meals.
“New Jersey has taken significant steps to make school meals accessible, and we must take equal steps to preserve their healthy composition,” Martindale told the committee. “We must be intentional in protecting the health of our state, and in particular of all our young New Jerseyans.”
A 2010 U.S. Department of Agriculture study found that children from food-insecure households relied more on school meals. About 13% of New Jersey children are food insecure.
This isn’t the first time that Trump has tried to cancel the Obama policy. In 2020, during his first term, the U.S. Department of Agriculture moved to cut the requirements. That led to a multi-state lawsuit that was resolved when a U.S. District Court in Maryland vacated the rule.
New Jersey legislators tried to return to the Obama school nutrition standard in three previous sessions, but the bills were never enacted.
