National school lunch program recent changes

Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. NSLP operates in nearly , public and nonprofit private schools grades PK and residential child care institutions.

On average, the NSLP provided low-cost or free lunches to Overall, about 3. Any student in a participating school can get an NSLP lunch. Students from households with incomes:. In FY , ERS-sponsored research found that children from food-insecure and marginally food-secure households were more likely to eat school meals, and received more of their food and nutrient intake from school meals than did other children.

Schools that delay or get an exemption may be able to comply in the future. After taking a look at some of the criticisms that have led some schools to leave the USDA School Lunch Program, it is worth looking at different ways those remaining in the program have made it work. The intent of the guidelines is to provide healthy lunches to kids.

Many schools have adopted strategies to encourage children to try new foods or found ways to afford the higher costs of food items. Parents can likely relate to the dilemma school lunchrooms are facing: how to provide a nutritious affordable lunch that children will actually eat.

Keeping this in mind can help you shape your advocacy for better lunches at your child's school or simply better understand the changes you may be hearing about. Get expert tips to help your kids stay healthy and happy. Department of Agriculture. Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act. Published June 28, JAMA Pediatr. School Nutrition Association.

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School Lunches Kids Want to Eat. School Lunch vs. Packed Lunch. Often, meal coupons are used for this purpose; they are purchased by those paying for their meals and provided free or at reduced price to qualifying students. All meals are provided free to students in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Federal reimbursements are based on incomes of households with students, using the forty-eight-state eligibility levels as a benchmark.

This system provides a further option that allows schools additional freedom in using various food-based menu planning systems, as long as they ended up meeting the basic nutrient standards. Even though much flexibility is provided in menu planning, the nutrient-based requirements of Public Law remain in effect.

Once every five years, each school district is monitored by the state agency, and a week of menus is evaluated for conformance in meeting the nutrient standards. These standards consist of specified levels of energy calories , fat and saturated fat, protein, calcium, iron, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C. The levels are specified as averages for kindergarten through sixth grade, and for seventh through twelfth grades. It began as a pilot program in , authorized by the Child Nutrition Act of , and was made permanent in The original purpose of the program was to primarily to provide breakfasts to elementary and secondary school children coming from poor economic areas, and to those traveling long distances to school.

After becoming permanent, the program has been equally available to all eligible children. However, reimbursement rates favor those areas in severe need, which are those districts serving a relatively large share of meals at free or reduced prices. The program is similarly administered at the federal level by the Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA, and usually at the state level by state education agencies.

It is still not as broadly available as the NSLP, but operates nationally in 72, schools and institutions. In addition, they must provide one-fourth of the daily recommended levels of calories and RDAs for protein, calcium, iron, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C. Any child at a school with an approved program may purchase breakfasts under the program, and those meeting NSLP requirements may also receive free or reduced-price breakfasts.

However, the preponderance of those participating receive their meals free or at reduced prices, which reflects the original purposes of the program. The program was later turned into a federal entitlement, with meals reimbursed on the basis of the number of meals served.

Paid breakfasts were reimbursed by the federal government at 21 cents in school year —, one cent more than for paid lunches served under NSLP. As in the case of lunches, Alaska and Hawaii receive higher reimbursement levels for all breakfasts served. There have long been strong feelings that the breakfast program provides key nutritional benefits to schoolchildren, perhaps even greater than those provided by the lunch program.

In part, these feelings reflect the fact that the lack of breakfast can adversely affect student performance until lunch is served at school. However, no known studies have established a firm basis for this conclusion. The School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study found that the availability of a SBP at school did not increase the likelihood of a child eating breakfast.

This study confirmed an earlier study of data from the — National Evaluation of School Nutrition Programs that had found the same result. However, a Mathematica Policy Research study showed that these conclusions depended heavily on the content definition of a breakfast.

The study defined breakfast as eating any food containing at least fifty calories. The conclusion was that if a breakfast was defined to require the serving of more substantial nutrients, then the SBP would be found to be more useful. Partly for this reason, Congress, in , funded a three-year evaluation of a pilot program in which all children would receive free breakfasts regardless of household income.

The Special Milk Program SMP provides federal reimbursements for milk alone served to children in nonprofit schools and child-care institutions that. These would include schools without NSLP or SMP food service, as well as those with half-day kindergarten programs where children do not have access to the lunch or breakfast program.

In , SMP milk was served in nearly 7, schools and residential child-care institutions, along with 1, summer camps and nonresidential child-care institutions. Those schools or institutions that participate in SMP offer milk on a paid or free basis using the same criteria of eligibility as under the NSLP. Reimbursements of paid milk are made on the basis of the number of half-pints of milk served. In —, schools received But for free milk served, they are reimbursed at the net purchase price for the milk.

Various kinds of milk—flavored or unflavored, low-fat or whole milk—are eligible to be served. It must provide children with regularly scheduled educational or enrichment activities in an organized, structured, and supervised environment to be eligible for federal reimbursements.

It also must be located in a geographic area served by a school in which 50 percent or more of the children enrolled are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals. Reimbursement rates for — were 55 cents for free snacks, 27 cents for those at reduced price, and 5 cents for those paid.

Rates were higher for Alaska and Hawaii, where free snacks were reimbursed at 93 cents and 67 cents, respectively. Table 1 shows the average daily participation, by payment categories, in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program for fiscal years , , and The data represent sums of monthly averages of participation reported by the states, averaged for the federal fiscal years for the months of October through May, plus September.

Participation is defined as the number of meals per enrolled student, adjusted for absenteeism. One can readily see that participation in the NSLP increased slightly between and , and that the increase in participation is centered on free or reduced-price meal participants.

Paid meal participation declined 10 percent. In terms of percentages, the reduced-price category increased the most more than one-third but it remained less than 10 percent of total participation.