Nourishing Students: The Power of Dairy in School Meals As millions of students return to classrooms this fall, schools play an important role in supporting children's health and well-being. At a time when concerns about childhood nutrition, food insecurity, and diet-related health conditions continue to grow, school meal programs serve as one of the most effective tools for ensuring children have access to nutrient-dense foods, including dairy foods, every day.
For students of all backgrounds, school breakfast and lunch provide a significant portion of their daily nutrition, helping address nutrient gaps and support healthy growth and development. Research consistently shows that students who participate in school meal programs have higher-quality diets than their peers and consume more nutrient-dense foods, including dairy foods. By providing consistent access to nutritious foods, these programs can help address food and nutrition insecurity while reducing risk of obesity and chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease later in life.
School meals also provide the energy and nutrients needed for cognitive development and classroom performance, contributing to academic success throughout the school year. Additionally, these programs create opportunities to establish healthy eating patterns during children's formative years, when food preferences begin to take shape, supporting long-term health beyond the cafeteria and classroom.
Dairy foods, in particular, play an important role in helping schools meet these goals. Many children do not consume recommended amounts of key nutrients necessary for growth and development, including calcium, vitamin D and potassium found in dairy foods like cheese, milk and yogurt. As families and educators focus on setting students up for success at the start of the school year, school meal programs that include dairy, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains provide a strong foundation for growth, learning and overall well-being.
Dairy Foods Support Growth, Learning and Development for Schoolchildren
Dairy foods have long been an important component of healthy school meals because they provide a unique package of nutrients that are often under consumed by children.
Cheese, milk and yogurt offer high-quality protein along with calcium, vitamin D, phosphorus and potassium, nutrients that support bone health, growth and overall development. These offerings also help schools meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations that require support for different nutrient needs, dietary tolerances, preferences and food traditions.
Cheese is beneficial because it is a fermented food that includes probiotics, and studies show that eating these types of foods improve gut health, which is positively linked to overall health and wellness. Additionally, aged cheeses like parmesan, asiago, pecorino romano, cheddar, swiss, gouda and provolone naturally contain less lactose due to the fermentation process, providing more flexibility while delivering the same essential nutrients that developing children need.
Flavored milk and yogurt offered in school meal programs further provide options for dairy consumption. While often containing small amounts of added sugar (10g or less), when consumed as a part of an overall healthy diet, these foods can meet students’ preferences while offering the same essential nutrients found in plain dairy foods.
By offering a variety of nutritious foods like dairy in a consistent setting, schools help students build eating patterns that support health and education outcomes inside and outside of the classroom.
Pairing Access with Education Builds Lifelong Healthy Eating Patterns
While access to nutritious foods is essential, access alone is only part of the solution. Nutrition education helps children understand the connection between food and health and empowers them to make informed choices throughout their lives.
Dairy Council of California has long partnered with schools to make nutrition education practical, engaging and relevant for students. Through standards-aligned classroom curriculum and professional development resources for educators and school nutrition professionals, the organization helps students develop food and nutrition literacy skills and learn how to build healthy eating patterns that include dairy foods. Students explore concepts such as balanced meals, nutrient needs, hydration and the role foods like cheese, milk and yogurt can play in supporting growth and overall health.
Dairy Council of California also partners with schools to increase agricultural literacy. The organization's Mobile Dairy Classroom, California's original farm-to-school agricultural literacy program operating since the 1930s, delivers a live dairy cow and interactive assembly directly to students. The experience helps students understand how milk is produced, where their food comes from and further reinforces how dairy can fit into a healthy eating pattern, creating meaningful connections between agriculture, nutrition and health that are relevant and memorable.
As students head back to school, school nutrition programs remain one of the most powerful opportunities to improve children's health. By providing access to nutrient-dense meals that include dairy foods and pairing those meals with nutrition education, schools help address immediate nutritional needs while laying the groundwork for lifelong healthy habits.
At Dairy Council of California, we believe that every child deserves access to nourishing meals that fuel not only their health, but their potential. For the dairy community, the back-to-school season is an important reminder that dairy foods continue to play a valuable role in helping children grow, learn and thrive. Expanding access to nutritious foods through school meals, strengthening nutrition education and building partnerships among schools, community organizations and agriculture are practical, proven strategies for supporting children's health, but achieving these requires more than a single solution or one sector. It necessitates a collaborative effort across education, health, agriculture and communities. Learn how you can join us to elevate children’s health by visiting DairyCouncilofCA.org.