President Donald Trump has signed into law a bill that overturns legislation passed under former President Barack Obama that placed limits on the provision of higher fat milk in school cafeterias, now allowing schools to serve whole milk.
The new act, titled 'Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025,' directs schools to allow children to be served "flavored and unflavored organic or nonorganic whole, reduced-fat, low-fat, and fat-free fluid milk and lactose-free fluid milk, and nondairy beverages that are nutritionally equivalent to fluid milk."
As he signed the bill into law at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said: "Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, whole milk is a great thing."
Whole milk (which has a fat content of 3.25 percent) was limited in schools in a move to help curb childhood obesity, and alternatives such as reduced fat milk (with a fat content of around 2 percent) were instead served. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in five Americans aged between 2 and 19 are obese.
Supporters of reducing the fat content of the milk drunk by children and adolescents in schools say it can help in the long term to prevent health issues such as cardiovascular disease. However, the Trump administration, particularly the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has advocated for reducing the consumption of more processed food while opting for "whole" foods.
Kennedy has previously said that because children did not like the reduced fat alternatives for milk, they were drinking other less healthy drinks, such as sodas and energy drinks, and now there is a "whole generation, 15 years, of children who were not getting vital nutrients... calcium, whole fats, vitamin D, and all of these other nutrients that are so good for our children."
Bringing whole milk back to schools was something included in a leaked draft of the second 'Make America Healthy Again' report, which noted the Trump administration sought to "remove restrictions on whole milk sales in schools, allowing districts to offer full-fat dairy options alongside reduced-fat alternatives."
The new act also states that milk beverages must meet the nutritional standards established by the health secretary, including having the same levels of calcium, protein, vitamin A and vitamin D as cow's milk.
The act also adds that milk fat included in any fluid milk (such as the previously listed examples) "shall not be considered saturated fat for purposes of measuring compliance with the allowable average saturated fat content of a meal."
This also comes days after the release of the 2025 to 2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommended the consumption of whole milk for children (among other measures) that come as part of Kennedy's MAHA push to get Americans to "eat real food."
The guidelines advise consuming healthy fats such as "whole foods, such as meats, poultry, eggs, omega-3-rich seafood, nuts, seeds, full-fat dairy, olives, and avocados," but that overall saturated fat consumption should not exceed 10 percent of total daily calories.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture also shared a post on social media earlier this week advocating for whole milk with a photo of Trump with a "milk mustache" and the caption The Milk Mustache Is Back.
Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard University, told Newsweek: "If it's just one serving per day, this will likely make little difference, but in the long term, higher consumption of full fat milk is likely to increase risk of cardiovascular disease. It would be better to offer soy milk, which is likely to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease and breast cancer later in life. Also, many Americans are lactose intolerant, and they should have this alternative."
He added: "This will slightly complicate logistics for schools and not impact dairy farmers appreciably. The dairy processing industry likes low fat milk because they can sell the removed fat as butter or cream and have a separate income stream. In the end, the fat gets consumed one way or another, so there will be no overall effect on health. The best strategy is to keep dairy consumption limited, and not increase beyond current consumption; three servings per day is too much for optimal health and would certainly be devastating for our environment."
The new act will impact students enrolled in the National School Lunch Program, which combined with the School Breakfast Program, includes nearly 30 million students in approximately 94,000 elementary and secondary schools nationwide.