In 2012, the Obama administration decided that America’s kids didn’t need whole milk. As a result, our children missed out on essential nutrition and our farmers lost critical income. Obama-era economic stagnation and anti-agriculture policies, including those promoting the Green New Scam multiplied hardships on the farm and many hardworking Americans began to lose hope.
Nearly one year ago, President Donald Trump’s inauguration restored that hope, and today he renews it. In signing the Whole Milk for Heathy Kids Act, President Trump delivers on his promise to put the welfare of American farmers and American children first.
While President Barack Obama took away market share from America’s dairy farmers to fight the war on healthy fats, President Trump is expanding markets both at home and abroad, pushing for better real food options for our kids.
The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, sponsored by Sens. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., and championed by Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., and Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., restores whole milk to schools across the nation, delivering real food for the next generation and standing up for the farmers who feed this country.
This issue is near and dear to my heart. Last year at my confirmation hearing, Sen. Marshall asked me if whole milk belongs in school lunches. I enthusiastically agreed. I also shared that growing up, my mom made sure that our refrigerator was always well stocked with whole milk. She instinctively knew that whole milk was a building block to a healthy future for me and my younger sisters.
So much has changed since the founding of our nation 250 years ago, but the benefits of drinking whole milk have remained the same. If anything, the nutrients that whole milk naturally provides are more in demand than ever before.
The childhood health crisis currently facing our nation is nothing less than an existential threat.
Over 75% of kids in America struggle with obesity, poor physical fitness or related health challenges. These rising rates of chronic disease are influenced by several factors, but diet plays a central role.
We have a responsibility to help fix this crisis, especially since it was partly driven by misguided federal nutrition policies that replaced real food with ideology.
The absence of whole milk from schools has long been overlooked by countless public officials, but President Trump noticed and has done something about it. This administration understands that the national health crisis cannot be overcome without reorienting federal nutrition policy around science and real-world outcomes.
The Trump administration understands that the national health crisis cannot be overcome without reorienting federal nutrition policy around science and real-world outcomes.
Let’s be clear—whole milk isn’t just another drink on a school lunch tray. It’s a nutrient-dense, affordable source of protein, calcium, vitamin D, and healthy fats that growing bodies and minds need to thrive.
Bringing whole milk back to schools also builds on this month’s release of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025–2030, which recognize full-fat milk, protein and healthy fats as essential building blocks of a balanced diet.
For the first time in years, federal guidance and school meal programs will complement one another, sending a consistent message to families about what healthy eating really looks like.
The Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act restores flexibility to schools, allowing them to offer whole, reduced-fat, low-fat, or fat-free milk. This is a win for local communities and parents, who can now make choices that best serve their kids.
And equally important, it’s also a win for American farmers—the backbone of rural America.
School meal programs create consistent demand for their products, strengthen local economies and reconnect children to the food that truly fuels them. And after Thursday’s announcement, the demand for whole milk will take off like a rocket.
So, to America’s dairy farmers: get ready. Gone are the days of declining milk consumption driven by failed Obama-era policy. Your hard work is back where it belongs, front and center in feeding our nation’s children.
This isn’t about partisan politics. It’s about practical, commonsense government policy, and it’s exactly the kind of real-world reform President Trump was elected to carry out.