On Jan. 7, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released his belated update to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Kennedy has long claimed that Americans consume far too many ultra-processed foods, emphasizing in the announcement that “American households must prioritize whole, nutrient-dense foods — proteins, dairy, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats and whole grains — and dramatically reduce highly processed foods. This is how we Make America Healthy Again.”
The remarks align with Kennedy’s broader MAHA movement, an offshoot of President Donald Trump’s popular slogan which argues chronic disease and corporate food practices are central drivers of the nation’s declining public health, and that the remedy is a return to so-called “real foods,” which include nutritionally controversial ingredients like beef tallow.
For students, the updated guidelines influence far more than personal food choices. They also greatly shape school lunch programs, federal food assistance programs like SNAP and even the nutrition advice students receive from their pediatricians or health teachers. High school students who rely on cafeteria meals will soon have to navigate changes that directly affect some of the most accessible and affordable meals — and their health. Here’s what students need to know.
For decades, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food pyramid — later rebranded as “MyPlate” in the 2011 Dietary Guidelines for Americans — has served two roles: It’s been a nutrition model taught in classrooms and doctors’ offices, and a policy guide shaping what foods qualify for federal programs such as school lunches. The new guidelines, however, upend previous frameworks, which had told Americans not to eat too many fatty foods or red meat. Instead, RFK’s updated version puts saturated fat sources and red meat near the top.
The update also paves the way for full-fat milk and other dairy products in cafeteria meals for schools participating in the National School Lunch Program, reversing the previous standard. Under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the Obama-era USDA required school cafeterias to offer only fat-free or low-fat varieties, including both flavored and unflavored milk. The implementation of this coincided with a drop in student milk consumption. According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, weekly milk use per average U.S. public school student fell from 4.03 to 3.39 cartons between 2008 and 2018 — a decline of 16%.
On Jan. 14, President Donald Trump signed into law the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, a measure aligned with recommendations from RFK that restores whole and 2% milk options in school lunches.
Nutrition experts’ mixed views on the health implications of this change and cafeteria lunch funding are potential obstacles to turning the law into actual menu changes. According to the School Nutrition Association, a national organization representing more than 50,000 school nutrition professionals, public schools nationwide will need to evaluate how interested students are in the options and then discuss pricing with their dairy suppliers. Whole milk and 2% milk are far more expensive than skim milk, which dietitian Liz Campbell told CNN Health may prove to be a barrier for underprivileged school districts.
While the White House has said that whole milk is better for students’ health, there’s not really evidence for that claim. For decades, low- and fat-free options have been favored because they contain fewer saturated fats and calories, while delivering the same protein, calcium, potassium and vitamin D. The American Heart Association continues to favor them. Other nutrition experts, like public health scientist Dariush Mozaffarian at Tufts University, find that fat content may not determine whether milk products are good or bad. “It’s pretty clear that overall milk and cheese and yogurt can be part of a healthy diet,” Mozaffarian told NPR on All Things Considered. “Both low-fat and whole-fat dairy versions of milk, cheese and yogurt have been linked to lower cardiovascular risk … fat content doesn’t seem to make a big difference.”
While it’s not yet clear how school cafeteria menus will be reimagined, we can make educated guesses. Because of existing USDA school meal rules, which were shaped by previous dietary guidelines, added sugars are already required to make up less than 10% of weekly calories by the 2027-28 school year. RFK’s guidelines further emphasize less added sugar, the inclusion of nutrient-dense animal proteins like dairy and eggs in American diets and the avoidance of highly processed foods. Nutritional epidemiologist Lindsay Smith Taillie told PBS that if the new guidance on processed foods gets translated into cafeteria menu rules, that would be a big shift: Most school meals come from ready-to-eat sources.
The guidelines reflect RFK’s broader “Make America Healthy Again” message, framing all added sugars as drivers of obesity. While sugary drinks are strongly associated with higher rates of weight gain, evidence is less consistent that modest added sugar intake independently causes obesity outside of overall calorie excess. And processed foods, while often framed as health scourges, are primarily linked to health problems when consumed in large amounts. Under RFK’s logic, limiting sugar is a public health necessity, while expanding access to dairy and eggs now in his mind corrects decades of low-fat guidance.
But increasing the proportion of saturated fats from foods like cheese and meat, which RFK groups under “nutrient-dense animal proteins,” would likely undermine the nutritional quality of school lunches. The American Heart Association suggests limiting total saturated fat consumption to under 6% of calories, since high consumption is linked to cardiovascular disease. “The science on saturated fat is pretty clear,” Anna Herby, nutritional education specialist for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, told The Hill. “It definitely raises cholesterol, and it’s definitely associated with heart disease, with insulin resistance, which leads to diabetes and also Alzheimer’s disease.”
A theoretical decrease in the proportion of highly processed foods in school lunches, on the other hand, could be good for health — if schools can get the funding they need for ingredient sourcing and the costs of more from-scratch cooking. During a session hosted by the USDA at the SNA School Nutrition Industry Conference from Jan. 11 to Jan. 13, two officials said the USDA will provide $18 million in farm-to-school grant funding for fiscal year 2026, and that there is more grant money to give out.
Now that the 2025-30 guidelines have been released, the USDA is beginning the process of updating official School Nutrition Standards — which guide lunch menus — to reflect them. While still in the early stages, the USDA will conduct a regulatory impact analysis to see what the potential changes to the standards could cost both the administration and public schools nationwide, said one of those officials, Jess Saracino, during the conference. “I would expect a proposed rule relatively fast in the world of rulemaking,” she said. “It could be months, but for us, it’s on a fast track. I can’t give you an exact date, but it will be as quickly as we can.”