A group of Democratic attorneys general are suing the Trump administration for “illegally weakening” school nutrition standards championed by Michelle Obama.
The lawsuit announced Wednesday seeks to prevent the Trump administration from scaling back nutrition guidelines on school breakfast and lunch that were implemented during the Obama administration.
The suit was filed by New York, California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.
“The Trump Administration has undermined key health benefits for our children — standards for salt and whole grains in school meals — with deliberate disregard for science, expert opinion, and the law. My office will use every tool at our disposal to fight back against these shameful rollbacks and ensure our children [sic] our protected,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
The states argue the Department of Agriculture did not provide a legally required opportunity for comment on the rollback of federal nutrition standards for sodium and whole grains that were implemented in 2012.
The changes to the sodium and whole grain requirements made by the Trump administration in 2018 “were not based on tested nutritional research,” the suit says.
The Obama guidelines were heavily criticized by Republicans and students unhappy with the healthier meals.
“How about we stop asking kids how they feel about their food? Kids, my kids included, if they could eat pizza and French fries every day with ice cream on top and a soda, they would think they were happy, until they got sick,” the former first lady said in 2017 of the criticism.” “That to me is one of the most ridiculous things we talk about in this movement, that the kids aren’t happy. Well, you know what? Kids don’t like math, either. So what are we going to do, stop teaching math? We gonna cut history out because there are kids who are bored with history? We are the adults in the room, you know? They look to us. So let’s just stop with that. I’m good if kids are mad at me.”
