{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://noem.house.gov/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=9F9B14BF-3C56-4484-BA35-CA95D84C47A6", "Noem Weekly Column: Time to Serve Up Better School Lunch Standards", "2013-12-02", "2013", "2013-12", "Republican", "House", "SD", "Kristi Noem", "N000184", "noem.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "By Rep. Kristi Noem \r\n\tAs all parents know, no two kids are exactly alike.\u00a0 I have three kids.\u00a0 Kassidy takes after her father.\u00a0 She is a natural-born athlete.\u00a0 Kennedy on the other hand is more like me.\u00a0 She plays sports too, but she\u2019s a little scrappier than her sister.\u00a0 And Booker \u2013 well, he has more energy than the rest of the family combined.\u00a0 And that says a lot.\r\nEven though all my kids live pretty active lifestyles, they each have varying nutrition needs.\u00a0 Still, current school lunch standards put all our kids into a nationwide one-size-fits-all mold and it isn\u2019t working.\r\nThe new rules took effect at the beginning of the 2012 school year.\u00a0 In addition to stricter calorie regulations, schools are limited as to what can be included in the meals they serve.\u00a0 For example, schools can only serve about 2 oz. of meat per day.\u00a0 That\u2019s equivalent to a chicken breast that is a little smaller than a deck of cards.\u00a0 Similar limits were put on grains and new restrictions were added regarding fruits, vegetables and milk.\r\nParents, students and school administrators alike have reached out to me with serious concerns about the new regulations.\u00a0 In some cases, kids need more to be successful at basketball practice or other afterschool activities.\u00a0 I\u2019ve also heard from school administrators who know that school lunches are the only meal some of their students get every day and they want the flexibility to give them a little extra.\u00a0 On the other side, some kids are leaving school so hungry that they go home and binge.\u00a0 One student from Chester said: \u201cI probably have two bowls, three bowls of cereal when I go home.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s not healthy either.\r\nLast year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture relaxed some of the meat and grain restrictions after so many parents, school administrators and policymakers raised concerns.\u00a0 But their actions only last through the end of this school year.\u00a0 I want to make these changes permanent.\r\nThis December, I am introducing a new school lunch nutrition bill to loosen the regulations that dictate how much meat and grains our students can be served.\u00a0 It will also ease up on some of the rules that have increased financial strain on our school districts.\u00a0\r\nLike many of you, making sure our kids are healthy is one of my top priorities.\u00a0 Childhood obesity is a growing crisis across the country and South Dakota has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the country.\u00a0 But overburdensome regulations aren\u2019t the right way to buck the trend.\u00a0\r\nWhile we have a long ways to go, South Dakota is one of the few states that is moving in the right direction on childhood obesity.\u00a0 Much of that is due to efforts on the local level where we\u2019ve worked to increase training and education so childcare providers and others can help keep kids more physically active and encourage them to eat more fruits and vegetables.\u00a0 It\u2019s made a difference.\r\nParents must also be involved in forming healthy habits at home.\u00a0 Around the dinner table at my house, we talk a lot about making healthy choices.\u00a0 Those discussions will go much further than restricting my daughter Kennedy to 2 oz. of meat at lunch during volleyball season.\r\nAs with many things that impact our kids, choices about nutrition should be made as close to home as possible.\u00a0 We need to give local schools more flexibility to make sure the kids they see coming through the lunch line every day are getting the food they need to be healthy and successful.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://noem.house.gov/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=9F9B14BF-3C56-4484-BA35-CA95D84C47A6"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8775179740041494, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}