The US Department of Agriculture runs a large array of farm and food subsidy programs. The school lunch and breakfast programs are two of the largest, which together with related school food programs will cost federal taxpayers an estimated $35 billion in 2025. Thirty million children, about 58 percent of students in public schools, receive school…

During the U.S. post-WWII recovery, appropriations for school lunch became codified in the 1946 National School Lunch Act, fueling program growth in the baby boom era to 18.9 million participating children by 1967, or about 42 percent of 45 million enrolled students. Then, in 1968, two reports funded by the Field Foundation of New York highlighted…

The National School Lunch Program's (NSLP) original goal was to help students in need, but policy changes in the past decade have made students from middle-income and upper-income families eligible for federally funded school meals. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), an expansion of the NSLP enacted in 2010, effectively created a federal…

Policies originally designed to address food insecurity are in need of revision due to rising rates of obesity among those they serve. Within the context of national policies, this article uses an ecological perspective to consider the links between food insecurity and obesity. The recommendations include adjusting the nutritional standards of the…

The school lunch program has not responded to national needs: the greater the need of the child from a poor neighborhood, the less the community is able to meet it. Of about eight million children whose families cannot afford the cost of a school meal, three million receive a lunch free or at reduced cost; of the five million denied reasonable…

Contents of this booklet include: (1) Chronology of the School Lunch Issue: Events Preceding the School Lunch Act of 1946, the 1946 School Lunch Act, "The Needy Go Unnoticed: 1946-1962,""Sorry, No Money: 1962-1965"; (2) "Their Daily Bread"--A Step Toward Action; (3) Congress Takes Action: The Vanik Program--A First…

This hearing examined the impact of the Administration's 1987 budget proposal on child nutrition programs, which were cut significantly. A spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture testified that the proposed budget was designed to preserve benefits for those truly in need, to provide for the national defense, to maintain taxes at the current…