New federal nutrition guidelines spark confusion, concern for Chicagoland schools
The new federal dietary guidelines, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) unveiled earlier this year, flip the 1992 food pyramid upside down — literally. Meat, whole milk, and “real food” steal the spotlight on the new pyramid, but the shift is raising concerns among child nutrition experts and sowing uncertainty among Chicago-area schools tasked with following federal guidelines for meal programs.
Kate Mason-Schultz, nutrition services coordinator at Evanston/Skokie School District 65, says she has concerns about the new guidelines from a budgetary standpoint. Cooking from scratch requires more time, skilled labor, and foods that might be more expensive.
Daylan Dufelmeier, director of Chicago Partnership for Health Promotion, a community organization that aims to reduce nutrition and health disparities, says the guidelines will likely cause schools to serve more breakfast meats, such as bacon and sausage, because of the emphasis on protein.
“That’s where I’m concerned,” Dufelmeier says. “We’ll probably actually end up with more terrible protein in school [diets].”
Diane Pratt-Heavner, director of media relations at the School Nutrition Association, says the association’s partner schools raised concerns over the cost of increasing protein offerings in meals.
Schools also expect the new recommendation to change their milk offerings. In 2012, the USDA implemented regulations that required schools to offer only fat-free and low-fat milk due to concerns about whole milk’s high saturated fat content. Now, under the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025, signed into law on Jan. 14, schools legally can serve whole milk again.
Real changes, real challenges
The recommendations call for more whole foods with minimal sugar, preservatives, industrial oils, and artificial flavors. White bread, white rice, flour tortillas, and breakfast cereals typically are processed and not recommended.
Dufelmeier says food waste could increase because the shelf life of whole foods is generally shorter than that of processed foods. However, he says focusing on whole foods is beneficial for children’s health.
The Eat Real Food campaign’s push to implement more whole foods would translate in schools as more scratch cooking and fewer prepackaged meals.
Pratt-Heavner says schools have been working for years to increase scratch cooking in accordance with prior dietary guidelines and regulations. Yet it remains challenging for cafeterias to scratch-cook all meals, she says.
“Schools absolutely rely on food companies to supply pre-prepared school food items for the menu because they simply do not have the staff, the money, the equipment, the infrastructure, or the time to scratch-prepare every meal for 30 million kids a day,” Pratt-Heavner says.
Since Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, federal officials have required schools to update their nutrition standards to align with dietary guidelines. Officials have not yet written regulations based on the new guidelines, so the full extent of changes to school meal programs remains unclear.
Kirsten Straughan, a registered dietitian and director of the nutrition science program at the University of Illinois Chicago, says she is concerned about the new dietary guidelines’ impact on children’s health, as many changes, such as the recommended amounts of protein and carbohydrates, are not based on scientific evidence.
The recommended daily protein intake nearly doubled from 0.8 to 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day under the new guidelines.
“There’s no scientific evidence that a sedentary person needs that much protein,” Straughan says.
The recommended daily allowance of carbohydrates also was dramatically reduced.
And there are contradictions. The recommendation to limit daily calorie intake of saturated fat sources is not consistent with advising the consumption of saturated fat-rich whole milk, Straughan says.
“Our kids who are showing evidence of heart disease — it’s not just because of drinking whole milk, of course, but whole milk is not going to help,” Straughan says.
With cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, more students also stand to go hungry. Food insecurity has drastic outcomes for children, including effects on their ability to learn. Approximately 1 in 4 children in the Chicago area are food insecure, according to the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
Straughan says that if government leaders are truly concerned about children’s health, they need to put more resources behind their recommendations.
