Zoe Shamash, MD
Corinna Rea, MD
Dina Ferdman, MD
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The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act is
a United States federal law signed by President Harry S.
Truman in 1946.
The act created the National School Lunch Program, a program to
provide low cost or free school lunch meals to qualified students
through subsidies to schools.
 The program was established as a way to prop up food prices by
absorbing farm surpluses, while at the same time providing food
to school age children.
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In response, Congress enacted the 1946 National School
Lunch Act as a "measure of national security, to safeguard
the health and well-being of the Nation's children."
The majority of the support provided to schools
participating in the program comes in the form of a cash
reimbursement for each meal served.
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Any child at a participating
school may purchase a meal
through the National School
Lunch Program.
Determined by household
income
Free lunch: income </=130%
of the federal poverty level
 Reduced price lunch, 130185% federal poverty level
 For 2006-07 for a family of 3:
 130 % of the poverty level
is $21,580
 185 % is $30,710.
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Friday, June 11 2010: pizza, fruit
cup, carrots
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Open to all children enrolled in a
participating school.
Approximately 95% of public
schools participate.
During the 2004-05 school year 29.1
million children in more than
98,900 schools and residential child
care institutions participated
On a typical school day, 17.1
million of these 29.1 million total
children, or 59 percent,
were receiving free or reduced
price lunches.
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Studies show that proper nutrition
improves a child’s behavior, school
performance, and overall cognitive
development.
Properly nourished children more
actively participate in the education
experience, which benefits them, their
fellow students, and the entire school
community.
A healthy eating environment teaches
children good nutrition and the
elements of a proper diet, which can
have positive effects on children’s
eating habits and physical well-being
throughout life.
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In the 2004-05 school year, 93-94% of meals failed to meet all nutritional
standards, primarily due to not meeting standards for fat, saturated fat, or
calories.
Most schools offered students the opportunity to select a balanced meal,
but few students made the healthful choice.
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Schools offer few whole grain foods, and french fries and other similar
potato products accounted for a disproportionate amount of the
vegetable options on school lunch menus.
The Institute of Medicine recently provided recommendations for
updated nutrition standards consistent with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines
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In about 90% of all schools nationwide, a student had opportunities to select low-fat
lunch options, but in only about 20% of all schools did the average lunch actually
selected by students meet the standards for fat
increasing the amounts of fruits, vegetables and whole grains;
reducing the amount of sodium and saturated fat provided; and
setting a minimum and maximum number of calories for school meals.
USDA is currently developing a regulatory proposal to guide schools in
implementing updated standards.
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In February, First Lady Michelle Obama launched the Let's
Move! campaign to solve the childhood obesity epidemic
within a generation.
As part of this effort, President Barack Obama established
the Task Force on Childhood Obesity to develop and
implement an interagency plan that details a coordinated
strategy, identifies key benchmarks, and outlines an action
plan to end the problem of childhood obesity.
The action plan defines the goal of ending childhood obesity
in a generation as returning to a childhood obesity rate of
just 5 percent by 2030, which was the rate before childhood
obesity first began to rise in the late 1970s.
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Four Major Goals:
Helping Parents Make Healthy Family Choices
 Serving Healthier Food in Schools
 Accessing Healthy, Affordable Food
 Increasing Physical Activity
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Many celebrities have joined the cause…
Rachael Ray is drumming up support for the
new bill:
"The difference an
apple or a good
school lunch makes
to these kids is more
than just keeping
them focused in class,
you know, it literally
is everything."
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Rachael Ray is campaigning for the new child
nutrition act, joined the Chefs Move to Schools
initiative, and is helping NY city schools to
provide healthier options for lunch.
She has gone to congress in person to use her
“big Sicilian mouth” to campaign for more
money to be spent on each child’s meals and
for trans fats to be abolished from school
cafeterias.
Jamie Oliver traveled
to Huntington, WV,
the “unhealthiest
city in America,”
and spent three
months improving
the food in the
schools in his reality
TV show, Jamie
Oliver’s Food
Revolution.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS
_djg
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John Salley, Tobey Maguire, Ellen DeGeneres,
Scarlett Johansson and many more have all
contacted Congress about improving the
quality of food in America’s schools.
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There have been many articles, op-eds, blogs
and videos deicated to the debate over school
nutrition. Many non-profit organizations are
lobbying hard for their views:
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Alice Waters (of Chez Panisse fame) wrote a famous
NY Times Op-Ed recommending a budget of $5 per
child per meal.
An angry mom has become known all over the internet
for eating lunch at a school cafeteria every day for a
year and posting pictures online on her blog.
A self-proclaimed “Renegade Lunch Lady” named
Ann Cooper has devoted her life to improving school
lunches.
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Amends the Richard B. Russell National School
Lunch Act and the Child Nutrition Act of 1966
to revise the school lunch and breakfast
programs, the summer food service program,
the child and adult care food program
(CACFP), and the special supplemental
nutrition program for women, infants, and
children (WIC program).
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Expanding Afterschool Meals for At-Risk Children Nationwide
 Child and Adult Care Food Program receives reimbursement for snack only,
will expand to include an additional 21 million meals annually by 2015.
Connecting More Eligible Low-Income Children with School Meals
 Expanding certification process to include all Medicaid patients
 Creates a new option that will allow schools in high-poverty areas to offer free
meals to all students without collecting paper applications, which will expand
access to more children and reduce administrative burdens on schools
 Eliminates the “letter method,” which requires families to return a letter to the
school to establish eligibility
 Estimate this will include 115,000 new students annually by 2015
Automatically Enrolling Foster Children for Free School Meals
Promoting the Availability and Locations of Summer Meal and Breakfast Sites
 New requirement of school food authorities to coordinate with the Summer
Food Service Program in their neighborhoods to to develop and distribute
materials to families to inform them of the availability and location of summer
meal sites and school breakfast sites.
Piloting Innovative Methods to Provide Nutrition to Hungry, Low-Income
Children
 New funding to test pilot projects to improve methods of providing nutritious
foods to hungry children, including during out-of-school times.
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Helping Schools Improve the Nutritional Quality of School Meals
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Establishing National Nutrition Standards for All Foods Sold in
Schools
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Revises the nutrition standards for meals, snacks and beverages served through the
Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)
Provides education and encouragement to participating child care centers and homes
to provide children with healthy meals and snacks and daily opportunities for
physical activity, and to limit screen time.
Farm-to-School Programs
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Secretary of Agriculture will have the authority to establish national nutrition
standards for all foods sold on school campuses throughout the school day.
Promoting Nutrition and Wellness in Child Care Settings
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Performance-based increase in the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches — 6
cents per meal
$40 million in mandatory funding to help schools establish school gardens and
source local foods into their cafeterias.
Supporting Breastfeeding in the WIC Program
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Expanding the collection of WIC breastfeeding data, creating performance bonuses
for state agencies with high rates of breastfeeding, and allowing contingency reserve
funds to be used to purchase breast pumps.
Mandatory funding for a program to recognize exemplary breastfeeding practices at
the WIC clinic and state agency levels. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act
permanently authorizes this program within child nutrition law and expands the
collection of WIC program data on breastfeeding rates.
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Establishing Professional Standards for School Food Service
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Simplifying Program Rules and Reducing Paperwork for Day Care
Sponsors and Providers
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Gives Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) sponsors greater flexibility with
their administrative funds, and eliminate the need for sponsors and day care centers
to resubmit duplicative paperwork each year.
Estimates that roughly an additional 2,500 day care homes will receive the higher tier
1 reimbursement rate.
Allowing WIC to Share Educational Materials with Other Programs
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New training and qualification standards for the people who operate the National
School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs at the local and state levels.
Allows state WIC agencies to permit local WIC agencies to share WIC nutrition
education materials with CACFP institutions at no cost if a written materials sharing
agreement exists between the relevant agencies
Improving Food Safety Requirements for School Meals Programs
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extending existing HACCP requirements to cover activities like breakfast in the
classroom.
3/17/2010 Introduced by Senator Blanche Lincoln (DAr), Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee
3/24/2010 Unanimously passed by the Senate
Agriculture Committee
5/5/2010 Introduced to the Senate Floor
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Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders.
Calendar No. 363.
6/10/2010 George Miller (D-CA) chairman of the House
Education and Labor Committee introduced the
Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act, a bill to
reauthorize and amend the Child Nutrition Act
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The main source of controversy regarding the two bills introduced
in Congress is funding.
Both bills increase the reimbursement for each meal by 6 cents,
which is the first increase above inflation in over 30 years. But
many argue that the increase is not enough to substantially
improve the quality of food. The School Nutrition Association
recommends a 35 cent increase, and Rachael Ray and Senator
Kirsten Gillibrand are lobbying Congress to increase the
reimbursement to 70 cents per child. A coalition of school
reformers, including the “Renegade Lunch Lady” Ann Cooper, is
asking for a $1 increase.
Obama had requested $10 billion over 10 years in new money for
child nutrition, and the Senate and House bills only provide $4.5
billion and $8 billion, respectively.
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Even at the recommended level of reimbursement, the bills are
pricey and it is questionable whether Congress will be able to pay
for them.
The Senate Agriculture committee, which introduced the senate
version of the bill, has found enough areas to cut their budget to
fund the bill. The bill proposes the appropriation of funds that
would otherwise go to USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives
Program, or EQIP. This program allocates subsidies to farmers to
use environmentally friendly farming practices. If passed by
Congress, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act would
reallocate $2.8 billion over the next 10 years from EQIP’s budget to
the new efforts to the new child nutrition programs.
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Many environmentalists oppose the cut: “This current proposal
would not only rob farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners of
conservation and environmental stewardship assistance in the
next decade, but would take away well over $2 billion from the
farm bill conservation baseline, or nearly half of the widely
lauded conservation increase in the 2008 Farm Bill.”
The bill would also cut $1.2 billion from the nutrition education
component of the federal food stamp program (now known
as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP)
over the next decade, which some say negates the whole
pupose of the new bill.
In contrast, although the House bill is more ambitious than that
of the Senate, they have not found the funds to pay for it.
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Others argue that while the bills do address
food safety, the provisions are too small,
especially in the Senate version of the bill. Food
safety experts are calling for a rapid alert
system to notify schools about recalled food,
higher purchasing standards for high-risk
foods, and arguing that school purchasers
should have access to safety information
regarding the organizations they are
purchasing from.
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It is unclear whether Congress will have time
to debate and pass a unified piece of
legislation. The current legislation expires on
September 30, so if they do not produce a bill
before the August recess, they will have to
extend the current funding and no changes will
be made for another year (like last year…).
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https://secure3.convio.net/voices/site/Advoc
acy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2037
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/tell_
senate_leaders_dont_delay_healthy_food_for_a
mericas_children
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You Tube videos…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lint8PiGu
RY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj_2xxUKWo
http://healthtopic.nationaljournal.com/2010/
03/lincoln-v-obama-school-lunches.php