Washington Watch
School Lunches-Another Helping
by Jessica Tate
Think back to
the school cafeteria---the food fights and the conversations
about what was in the casserole. Most of us took the everyday
ritual of eating lunch for granted. However, for many children
in the United States, school meals provide most of the nutrition
they receive and may be the only food they eat during the day.
The United States Department of Agriculture reports that hunger---defined
as the inability to purchase enough food to meet basic nutritional
needs---affects 13 million children in our country. This has
many negative effects on development including abnormal brain,
cognitive and psychological development, shorter attention span,
learning difficulties and more absences from school due to illness.
To combat childhood hunger, the United States government has
taken a series of legislative steps throughout history.
1946 National School Lunch Act
1964 Food Stamp Act
1966 Child Nutrition Act
Today more than half of the children in the United States
consume public school lunches. One in 10 has breakfast. Since
the beginning of the program 183 billion lunches have been served.
Congress must reauthorize and fund both the National School
Lunch and Child Nutrition Acts this year. Various modifications
would improve the quality of the programs, including simplifying
program administration, expanding eligibility guidelines, increasing
funding to promote healthy eating habits and accurately reimbursing
schools for the cost of healthy meals.
Jessica Tate is an intern for the PC(USA) Washington Office.
Learn more about hunger and hunger legislation.
--Visit the Feeding Children Better Web site, www.feedingchildrenbetter.org.
--To learn more about the campaign to make school lunches
healthy visit www.healthyschoollunches.org.
--For information on child nutrition programs in schools visit
www.fns.usda.gov/cnd.
Contact your members of Congress and let them know that ending
child hunger is important to you. Encourage them to reauthorize,
improve and allocate funds for the National School Lunch Program
and the Child Nutrition Act. Call the Capitol switchboard at
202/224-3121 and ask to speak to your representatives.
Learn more about efforts to combat hunger by contacting Bread
for the World by phone, 800/82-BREAD, or via their Web
site, www.bread.org.
For more information, contact the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office, 110 Maryland Ave. NE, Washington,
DC 20002; 202/543-1126; fax 202/543-7755; www.pcusa.org.
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great articles in the current issue of Horizons.
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