Healthy Kids Act

In order to maximize our program’s ability to provide nutritious meals and snacks, we participate in the federal school nutrition programs, which includes the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. According to the Department of Agriculture, the National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program for public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions (2015). It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day. On the same note, our program participates in School Breakfast Program. The department of Agriculture specifies that this program provides cash assistance to states to operate nonprofit breakfast programs in schools and residential childcare institutions. Both the National School Lunch Program, and the School Breakfast Program, ensures that the children receive the adequate nutrition while the our

High school food options raise problems for students. School lunches may not be the cheapest option for the students or the district. According to "Duluth high school principals want to stick with open campuses," Duluth’s principal, Tonya Sconiers, opposes a closed campus because of the financial burden. This program change would cost the school approximately $239,000 to supply what would be needed for the new food policy. In addition, the lunches provided by the school lack quality. Students report the food as bland, and portion size is not enough to fuel for the entire school day. Numerous students involved in after-school activities cannot perform their best without a sufficient amount food in their stomachs. The food should provide energy for the students throughout the day. For low-income students, this lunch might be the only reliable daily meal.

The National School Lunch Program is an enormous federal program that has grown to become the second largest U.S. food and nutrition assistance program in both numbers of children served. In 2009, over 31 million children participated in the NSLP each school day at a cost of 9.3 billion to the Federal government. The SBP reached 11 million children at an additional cost of 2.4 billion. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers the program on the federal level and provides oversight of the states agencies that are responsible for the program, in Georgia, the department of education manages the statewide program. Ultimately, the success of the program resides with the local school district or each individual school food authority who implement the program to the students. The laws establishing the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program stated that schools had to run their nutrition programs profit free and set the monetary per meal rates to reimburse the individual school. Rates for school year 2009 were $2.72 for free lunches, $2.32 for reduced cost lunches and $.26 for paid lunches. Today, almost half of all lunches served are provided free to students, with an additional 10 percent provided at reduced prices. Although schools are not required to offer NSLP meals, 94 percent of schools, both public and private, choose to participate in the program. Little

Nearly 100,000 schools in America participate in the National School Lunch Program. Lunches created as part of this

“The National School Lunch Program, or NSLP, is a federally assisted meal program operating in over 101,000 public and non‐profit private schools and residential childcare institutions.” ("National school lunch," 2011) This government-run program is headed by the department of Food and Nutrition standards, a subgroup of the United States Department of Agriculture. “It provides nutritionally balanced, low‐cost or free lunches to more than 31 million children each school day in 2009.”

The National School Lunch Program enforced a rule, which “sought to improve school meals” (United 4088). The rule includes many different parts to it, which requires state agencies to acquire and check many different pieces of data. The first thing the state agencies are required to do, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, is to “Conduct a nutritional review of school lunches and breakfasts as part of the administrative review process” (4088). By having these checks, the USDA can ensure that schools are following the dietary restrictions as well as meeting the FDA nutritional standards. The second step for state agencies is to “Determine compliance with the meal patterns and dietary specifications based on a review of menu and production records for a two-week period” (4088-4089). This guarantees that schools will follow the FDA regulations because the state agencies force schools to follow and be compliant. To conclude the first rule, the third and final action that state agencies must take is to “Review school lunches and breakfasts every three years, consistent with the HHFKA (Healthy Hungry-Free Kids Act)” (4089). This assures that schools are adhering to the FDA guidelines over the long run. The agencies check the school menu over the past three years, to make

The National School Lunch Program is a federally funded meal program operating in over 100,000 public. It provides nutritionally balanced, low‐cost or free lunches to more than 31 million children each school day in 2012 based on the child's household income (USDA). The program is managed by the Food and Nutrition Service at the Federal level and by a State education agency at the state level. We will be looking at the statistics of the National Lunch Program for five local schools, and compare the number of students enrolled in the districts and the percentage that are receiving free or discounted meals at school. Additionally, the requirements to be eligible to participate in the program, as well as the reimbursement the school

Child nutrition programs are permanently authorized but revised approximately every five years. Of the many programs included, the lunch and breakfast program is the largest, accounting for about 80% (~$15 billion) of child nutrition spending¹ and serving 30+ million students, 20+ million of whom are eligible for free or reduced price meals (FRP, defined as children from families at <185% of the poverty line).²

In Murphy’s article she argues how students are not satisfied with these changes over the past few years. She argues how students are wasting their food and money due to the Health, Hunger Free Act. “Food and nutrition directors at school districts nationwide say that their trash cans are overflowing while their cash register receipts are diminishing as children either toss out the healthier meals or opt to brown-bag it.”( Murphy, She argues how this act causes students waste most of their lunches

The Nation 's second biggest nutrition and nourishment aid program is the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). More than 99,000 public and non-profit private kindergartens through twelfth-grade schools benefitted from this program by receiving over 30.3 million reduced-cost or free lunches with the Federal Government spending $12.6 billion per year. Almost 5 billion lunches were served in school lunchrooms in 2014, over two-thirds of those lunches were at a reduced-cost or were free of charge. The research discovered that the children who were more likely to eat the meals at school and obtained most of their nutrition and food intake from these meals at school lunchrooms were from marginally secure and food- unstable homes.

National School Lunch and Breakfast program is a federally funded program that provides nutritional breakfast and lunches to children at a reduced cost or free each school day at a public, nonprofit private school and residential child care institutes.

Think back; is there a school lunch that comes to mind? There may have been at least one school lunch that the lunch ladies would dish up that made a majority of the students excited to eat. Kids that routinely brought their super-hero lunch-box and thermos would leave it at home and jump in line for pizza or burgers and fries. Kids were also allowed to go back for “seconds” and for some students, it was the greatest meal of the week, including what their family served at home. The federal government has been involved in the NSLP (National School Lunch Program) since 1946, with the implementation of the National School Lunch Act. These initial programs developed the commodity distribution program for schools, institutions, needy households, summer camp, and other eligible outlets (USDA Food and Nutrition Service). Since this initial deployment, there have been various changes, the most recent being “Healthy Kids Hunger-Free Act” passed in 2010. This was an initiative of the First Lady Michelle Obama. The act was part of her plight against child obesity and also part of her “Let’s Move” action. The impact of the government controlling what is chosen for the school lunch menu has decreased student participation, increased waste, and decreased healthy eating among the students.

In his article (Kids Give Healthy Foods an A+) the writer founds that there is schools are serving healthier foods, and most kids are eating them. So, that is means no more unhealthy foods in schools. Across the country, school lunchrooms are serving up healthier foods and the kids are not complaining. In fact, food service directors around the country say that many kids actually prefer healthy foods. In addition, this program targets schools that receive government money to pay for food. These schools must develop healthier menus and make it healthier to protect kid's health. In 2005, at least 17 states made laws to put healthy foods and drinks in school cafeterias. Moreover, one law says that by next fall, food items must contain no more

Federally-funded school meal programs, including the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP), serve an average of 31.3 million lunches and 11.1 million breakfasts per day at a cost to the country of $11.1 billion in 2011 (Food & Nutrition Services, 2012). These federally-funded meals are an excellent opportunity for regulation of nutrition as well as education regarding healthy choices. Obesity is clearly a great threat to the health of our nation, and the federal government must step in to defend its citizens against this growing threat. Children are at the mercy of their families, their social conditions, and their schools, predisposing them to obesity through poor nutritional options and a lack of education; the federal government must intervene through regulation of school meals and snacks to protect children from the abundance of unhealthy options while also educating them and reducing childhood obesity.

To support the solution is many schools are struggling with providing healthy to meals to students because it had been mentioned “The No. 1 meal served to children in U.S. schools is chicken fingers and French fries. Processed food is much cheaper to serve than fresh produce.”( Jen Christensen, CNN).In other words the school prefers to pay for the menu that 's cheaper and something they would likely to eat. “A 2009 study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that 94 percent of school lunches failed to meet the U.S. Agriculture Department 's regulatory standards.” (Jen Christensen,CNN).To this research of information which was mention above the school board should pass a resolution to remove junk food for the school meals that they are offering.