|
|
|
At a time when poverty levels for children have sharply increased, access to universally free school meals remains a priority for many communities nationwide. In this issue of the Deep Dish, we explore the aftermath of federal pandemic waivers and other programs to feed kids and provide free meals for all.
In our feature story, we check in on the current state of lunch shaming, a practice we first reported on in 2017. While it has been banned in some communities, the end of pandemic-era supports has plunged many families back into school meal debt, a problem without a simple solution.
We also follow up on our previous reporting about the USDA’s farm to school program as well as ongoing labor shortages in school cafeterias. And we check in with the Global Child Nutrition Foundation to find out how school meal programs in the U.S. compare to other countries.
It’s a great issue, but before we dive in, we want to take a moment to express our thanks and pride for the recognition Civil Eats has earned in several prestigious awards competitions this year.
In May, we won the James Beard Foundation award for best investigative reporting for our "Injured & Invisible" series. We have also been selected as winners and finalists for prestigious awards including the Native Media Awards, the Nonprofit News Awards, and the IACP Food Writing Awards. And last month, we were honored to be recognized for general excellence with a nomination for best micro-sized newsroom from the Online News Association.
We couldn’t have done it without members like you. Your ideas and support fuel us, and we thank you. If you'd like to increase your support for our work with a tax-deductible donation, please click the button below.
~ The Civil Eats Editors |
| Donate Today |
|
|
|
|
Member Updates |
|
Civil Eats Salon
Get ready for our next salon: Tuesday, October 3 at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET
In keeping with the theme of this newsletter, we will be focusing on school food access, and our senior staff reporter Lisa Held will be joined by two experts to discuss the topic and answer your questions. Please join us for this one-hour session; we will send an invitation with more details soon.
Civil Eats Member Slack Community
We have a new Slack community for members to engage more directly with our team and with each other and we want you to join!
The community has five channels:
-
What’s New: Updates and announcements
-
Lunch Break: Inspiring recipes, books, restaurants, etc.
-
The Edit Room: Conversations about our reporting and newsletters
-
Community Hub: Share and learn about Civil Eats’ members and team
-
What We Are Reading: The Civil Eats team shares food-related article recommendations
Help us build our Slack Community: If you’d like to participate, please review the Community Rules and Agreements and accept this invitation link, which is good through October 10. (Here are the instructions if you’re using Slack for the first time.)
(Return to top) |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Without Federal School-Meal Support, Lunch Shaming May Be Back on the Menu
By LYNN FANTOM |
|
Before the pandemic, Elizabeth Santamour dreaded seeing a certain stack of envelopes once a month in her mailbox. A third-grade teacher in Scurlock, North Carolina, she was tasked with handing out past-due cafeteria bills to her students.
"The kids knew what they were taking home to their parents and the reaction they were going to get. They knew,” Santamour said. “I had kids who left them in their book bags for days. When I handed them to some kids, they’d get upset. Others would refuse breakfast or lunch because of the expense they knew they were accruing.”
Students and teachers nationwide had a two-year break from this pressure when federal pandemic waivers allowed free meals for all. That was followed by a transition year of higher per-meal reimbursements funded by the Keep Kids Fed Act. But those expired in July. Now the burden of school meal debt begins again, at a time when experts are declaring a kids’ mental health crisis as a broad array of stressors, from gun violence to climate disasters, roil their world.
The Education Data Initiative pegs the annual national public school meal debt at $262 million. What’s more, after free school meals for all ended, 67 percent of schools surveyed by the School Nutrition Association (SNA) reported an increase in stigma for low-income students who often depend on those meals as a key source of nutrition.
“Schools, families, and states really did not want to go back to having the complicated school nutrition operations where some kids have access to free meals and others do not, and they have to struggle with unpaid debt,” said Crystal FitzSimons, the director of school and out-of-school time programs at the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC).
And in a small handful of states, they haven’t gone back: Lawmakers in California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont have made universally free school meals permanent. But in the rest of the country, the return to paid school meals has also brought back a host of complications.
Prior to the pandemic, some schools had resorted to tactics that embarrassed kids, such as stamping their hands to remind parents of unpaid bills and substituting cold cheese sandwiches for hot meals. Sometimes meals were thrown out in front of children. And while experts say that fewer districts have resumed these practices—often dubbed “lunch shaming”—they haven’t gone away entirely either. |
 |
|
Illustration by Nhatt Nichols (click the image to view a larger version online)
|
|
|
|
A Flurry of State Legislative Activity and Public Sentiment
Schools finance breakfast and lunch programs primarily through per-meal reimbursements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). To receive those reimbursements, which vary based on family income, schools must provide meals that meet certain nutritional standards.
Children in households with incomes at or up to 130 percent of the federal poverty level can receive free meals; those whose households have incomes between 130 and 185 percent are charged 30 cents for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch.
School meal debt may accrue if families are unable to overcome various barriers to the free school meal application process. Even families that receive reduced-price meals may struggle with the co-pay. If families can’t pay their debt, the shaming may begin.
There was a wave of media coverage about lunch shaming prior to the pandemic, and it appears to have had an impact.
“People have a very visceral reaction to those stories, they get a lot of traction, and you know kids often have phones in school,” which allowed them to document and share the stories themselves, said FitzSimons. After the spate of publicity, experts say the overt actions diminished.
At least 20 states also have taken action against lunch shaming with specific legislation, according to FRAC. North Dakota is among the most recent, with a law signed in April that prohibits public identification or stigmatization of students whose parents have outstanding meal debt.
But some anti-shaming bills have failed. In January, for example, a New Hampshire state representative introduced such a bill, and it was killed the following month. Another effort by legislators there—a bill to raise the income threshold for reduced price lunches from 185 percent to 300 percent of the federal poverty level—made it as far as a Senate committee, which recommended delaying a decision until next year. |
|
“There have been a lot of changes in recent years, including the recognition of the value of school meals to students' health and academic achievement.”
|
|
|
And despite the gulf between states with universally free school meals and those without, it’s clear that the pandemic put a spotlight on the importance of the role of schools in feeding the nation’s children.
“There have been a lot of changes in recent years, including the recognition of the value of school meals to students’ health and academic achievement. In most schools across the country, kids, even if they don't have money in their accounts, are getting some kind of meal,” said Pratt-Heavner of the SNA. She added that she has seen a dramatic increase in unpaid meal debt, which is an indication that kids are being fed even if they don't have money.
There have also been a number of community-wide efforts to assist families that can't pay for their school meals. In fact, over half of school districts have received charitable donations to help pay off meal debt.
People in Michigan and Virginia have started nonprofits focused solely on relieving school meal debt. Sometimes a local foundation, small business, or church provides the funds and makes headlines. Individuals have stepped in as well.
In August, a 14-year-old in Missouri raised $400 to give to his former elementary school because he remembered not having enough money for lunch when he was there. In May, the New Hampshire family of a retired cafeteria worker who had died of cancer sold her car for $3,000 and used the money to help pay off the school’s meal debt. And at the end of last year, a former North Carolina school superintendent donated $20,000 to help pay debts owed by low-income students.
That school superintendent realized something many others probably don’t: If debt remains, it must be paid out of the school district’s general fund. “This can be the difference between being able to hire another teacher, aides, and the like for the classroom. And so, this has a profound impact on education,” said Juliana Cohen, an associate professor in the department of nutrition and public health at Merrimack College and an adjunct associate professor in the department of nutrition at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
But Morgan Wittman Gramann, executive director for the North Carolina Alliance for Health, said private donations are a “temporary fix” to a recurring problem. “We need to address the systemic issues that make this generosity necessary.”
Vague and Variable School District Policies
In conversations with food service directors and parents, advocates say they’re continuing to hear about lunch shaming. “It's still occurring, but there's just a lot of variation,” said Cohen, who has multiple grants to examine school-based policies and is also director of the Nourish Lab. |
|
“We've heard stories of some school districts that have created robocalls that call the parent every single night until the debt is paid off.”
|
|
|
In an effort to measure the scope of the problem, a researcher at the University of North Carolina conducted an analysis of school district meal charge policies in the state. The policies posted online by districts were “vague” and “vary in their willingness to allow meal charges, punishments, and implementation,” according to the report. Forty percent of school districts had a policy to serve those students “an alternative meal,” typically without meat, to reduce the cost.
A local news station reported that when an alternative meal is served in North Carolina’s Guilford County schools, for example, the district’s executive director of school nutrition said that it “looks similar to the daily reimbursable meal to avoid identifying that student.” But the question remains: How does that alternative meal make the child feel?
Some schools in the state have also singled out students who have a balance at the end of the year. In May, a middle school in Granville County, North Carolina, surprised parents with an email warning that students with unpaid meal bills would be excluded from certain end-of-the-year school events. "It's just an effort to try to encourage our families to help us take care of these bills so that our local taxpayers don't have to rely on clearing this up,” the county’s associate superintendent told a local ABC affiliate.
Another tactic: robocalls. “We've stories of some school districts that have created robocalls that call the parent every single night until the debt is paid off,” said Cohen.
In some places—including Douglas County, Colorado, and Knox County, Tennessee—debt collectors are even called in.
All of this is in stark contrast to the best practices FRAC has developed on how schools should engage with households about school meal debt. The group encourages contact to be made by “trusted school officials” and warns against “harsh tactics,” such as charging households added fees and withholding school records. According to FRAC, 20 states still have no legislation addressing issues such as unpaid school meal fees and outreach programs.
What Free Meals for All Feels Like
In addition to the eight states that have made universally free school meals permanent, a few states have temporary policies in place. For the 2023–2024 school year, for example, no public-school student in Nevada will have to pay for meals. And in at least 20 other states, legislators are working to pass bills to institute free school meals, according to FRAC.
|
|
|
“Not only are we providing all children nutrients, but universal free school meals reduce the stigma of who's accessing school meals.”
|
|
|
“There was also a huge increase in the number of schools providing free meals to all students through the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP),” FRAC’s FitzSimons added. After experiencing the benefits of universally free school meals during the pandemic, close to 7,000 more schools adopted CEP for 2022–2023, an increase of 20 percent over the previous year.
CEP allows a school or district to provide free meals if 40 percent or more of children are in a program such as SNAP or a category that includes homeless, migrant, and foster care children. With CEP, family members are not subjected to the stigma of filling out applications.
Massachusetts is one of the most recent states to adopt universally free school meals. During the 2022–2023 school year, the state had authorized a one-year temporary extension of free school meals. Nourish Lab, directed by Cohen, surveyed parents about what would occur if the policy ended. In a surprising insight, roughly two-thirds of households near eligibility for free or reduced-price meals and one-third of middle-class households said that they may not have enough food in their homes if school meals were not free.
Cohen said this reflects federal eligibility criteria that does not take into account the “incredibly high cost of living” in many places and the fact that many so-called middle-class families are also struggling.
The Nourish Lab study also found that 42 percent of families with children eligible for free or reduced-priced meals reported their child would be less likely to eat a school meal next year if it was not free for all children.
That’s because if school meals aren’t free for all, kids associate them with subsidized food for low-income families. But when the stigma is removed, kids are no longer embarrassed to eat them, and overall meal participation increases. That dynamic has played out in case studies around the world and is now being experienced by American kids in a growing number of states.
“There is so much movement in this area,” said Cindy Leung, an assistant professor of public health nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Not only are we providing all children nutrients, but universal free school meals reduce the stigma of who’s accessing school meals. There’s no more lunch shaming with the cheese sandwiches. So, how can we leverage this momentum?”
(Return to top) |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
(Photo credit: Linden Tree Photography, courtesy of Hand, Heart + Soul Project) |
|
The Follow-Up: How the USDA’s Farm to School Program Has Succeeded—and Where It’s Falling Short
By CHRISTINA COOKE |
|
With the help of a $98,000 federal Farm to School grant, children at six early education centers in Clayton County, Georgia, will receive nutrition education, help grow vegetables in school gardens, and develop eating habits that incorporate fresh, local foods.
They will also, hopefully, learn to appreciate soil, insects, and other parts of the garden ecosystem—and stop singing “that awful song” about squishing up a baby bumblebee, said Wande Okunoren-Meadows, executive director of the Hand, Heart + Soul Project (HHSP), the grassroots nonprofit overseeing the six-center program.
Clayton County is the least wealthy of all metro Atlanta counties, and it ranks the lowest on the child well-being index. “Whole Foods is never going to come to our community,” Okunoren-Meadows said. Compounding the lack of fresh food access for young children, she added, is the fact that early childcare centers often have a harder time sourcing from local farmers than a K-12 school system might, because they are not equipped to buy in bulk and meet farms’ minimum order thresholds.
“Our goal at Hand, Heart + Soul Project is to make healthier and wholesome food accessible, and also to go from food security to food sovereignty,” Okunoren-Meadows said. “We do our work with early education centers—preschoolers—and change those habits before we have to get to the part where we’re dealing with remediation and hospitals and blood pressure issues and things of that nature.”
The Clayton County initiative was one of 103 projects across the country to receive a federal Farm to School (F2S) grant from the USDA this year. The $10.7 million in funding supports projects nationwide meant to institutionalize farm to school efforts in school lunches, summer food service, and child and adult care programs.
Created in 2010 by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, the national farm to school program guarantees $5 million in federal funds for the grant program, which promotes projects such as school gardens to engage students in hands-on learning; agriculture, health, and nutrition education; and the procurement and preparation of local foods in cafeterias. Congress can also decide to dedicate additional discretionary funding. |
|
“Whole Foods is never going to come to our community. Our goal . . . is to make healthier and wholesome food accessible, and also to go from food security to food sovereignty.”
|
|
While the program has received robust support over the last few years, thanks to the support of former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and other lawmakers, it’s facing challenges in the coming fiscal year: The funding proposals in both the House and Senate would substantially cut the current level of programming.
And while innovation is happening in many states, said Karen Spangler, policy director for the National Farm to School Network, “I wouldn't want to paint an overly sunny picture, because there's lots of inertia. Not every state agency is excited to do things in a new way.”
On the positive side, Spangler appreciates that in its 2022 National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, the White House acknowledged the importance of school meals, as well as the value of incorporating local and regional food systems and scratch cooking into those meals.
“Since this strategy represents a consensus opinion of experts, policymakers, and public input, we feel it's an important step,” Spangler said. “Too often, farm to school is thought of by decision-makers as a niche interest, or ‘nice to have,’ rather than the powerful and essential strategy it is.”
Additionally, the USDA has made the moves it can to support the program, including proposing a rule in March that would expand schools' abilities to offer free school meals, Spangler said.
But because Congress is in charge of authorizing the discretionary funds to cover the program each year, support is never a sure thing. In the current fiscal year, the legislature authorized $14 million in discretionary funding for farm to school programs. (Beyond the $10.7 million in grants, the funds cover things like staffing and technical assistance.) But for 2024, the House has proposed a mere $3 million in discretionary funds, and the Senate has proposed $10 million. “It would mean significantly fewer projects” Spangler said, if the final figure is in line with the House proposal. |
|
“Too often, farm to school is thought of by decision-makers as a niche interest, or 'nice to have,' rather than the powerful and essential strategy it is.” |
|
“Our goal is ultimately to permanently amend the Farm to School grant program to have a higher mandatory funding level, so the USDA is not dependent on the annual appropriations,” Spangler continued. She would also like to see an end to the requirement that organizations match 25 percent of the funds they receive, which puts small, new, and under-resourced projects at a disadvantage.
Some states offer their own farm-to-school support. California’s investment in the program has been traditionally robust, as has support in a few states you might not expect, Spangler said. “Alabama has a local procurement reimbursement policy that awards additional funds for schools to serve local components in their school meals,” she said. Maine and New Mexico are also making good progress. “Those kinds of policies are really gaining ground.”
However, the program has not gained traction in other places. For example, while advocates in Hawaii made advances in centering traditional Hawaiian concepts and values in its program, the state’s Department of Education has not implemented these policies—and, in fact, it has pushed to further centralize school food. The state also failed to use $650,000 in federal funds meant to help schools purchase local food, sparking controversy.
In Georgia, Okunoren-Meadows expects to see a number of benefits as the Hand, Heart + Soul Project deepens the work it began with its first smaller farm-to-school grant last year. “Just not being in a classroom all day long, it is rejuvenating, it is refreshing, and it has helped with behavioral issues,” she said. “You can have a Harvard-trained teacher, a Spelman-trained educator, and unless [the children] have wholesome food in their bellies, they may have a harder time thriving in the classroom.”
Still, Okunoren-Meadows said $98,000 can only go so far. “It is going to take much more funding—and I hope Congress and everybody else knows this—to make an impact. It takes years and years and years to see change in communities.”
(Return to top) |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
(Photo CC-licensed by the USDA) |
|
The Follow-Up: The Labor Shortage Is Taking a Toll on Cafeterias
By LISA HELD |
|
When the news that cafeterias would soon be able to serve Lunchables broke in the spring, it struck many as counter to the USDA’s ongoing efforts to make school meals healthier. And while Kraft Heinz did have to reformulate the ultra-processed product to meet evolving nutrition standards, its sales pitch has nothing to do with health.
Instead, it’s about “minimizing labor needs and costs.” That’s a promise likely to get the attention of many people running school food programs.
In June, the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) released a report covering 91 large school districts that serve a combined 6.5 million U.S. students. FRAC found that 86 percent of those districts reported labor shortages as a major challenge facing their meal programs, second only to high food prices. Those results align with earlier findings from the School Nutrition Association’s 2023 trend report.
In the association’s survey of more than 1,200 districts last year, 93 percent of school nutrition directors said staff shortages were at least a moderate challenge, with 60 percent calling it significant. As districts increased in size, so did their staffing challenges.
It's not just school food, of course: With about 9.8 million jobs currently open and only 5.9 million unemployed workers, hiring is a challenge many industries face. But since the pandemic spurred an employment “reshuffle,” workers have been leaving food service at much higher rates than other industries.
Low wages are a big factor, and many school meal programs struggle to make budgets work. “We’ve worked in districts where Walmart opens in the town, and everyone leaves because they pay more,” said Dan Giusti, the founder of Brigaid, a company we first reported on in 2018, which works with schools from coast to coast to improve their meals. |
|
“When you transition to cooking more, your labor costs are higher, but you're going to eventually drive down your food costs. The problem is it doesn't happen overnight.”
|
|
And unlike a job at a fast-food chain, school meals present a specific challenge: Many positions involve short shifts, just three or four hours long. At Morgan Hill Unified School District south of San Jose, California, Director of Student Nutrition Michael Jochner said that staffing is tight and that the people he can find want to work eight-hour shifts. “MHUSD is not fiscally set up for my entire team to be eight hours, probably like most districts,” he said.
Jochner has been able to keep his salad bars fresh, but some of his efforts around scratch cooking have suffered. “We've been buying [individually wrapped entree items] to send to sites that become understaffed,” he said.
Giusti said that in the years since he started Brigaid, he has come to believe that some pre-made foods are necessary to complement scratch cooking in schools. But he also said when schools are able to make upfront investments, scratch cooking—despite the labor required—can offer a counterintuitive solution over time. Since more people are needed to slice and sauté, it creates openings for more full-time positions, attracting more workers.
“When you transition to cooking more, your labor costs are higher, but you’re going to eventually drive down your food costs,” Giusti said. “The problem is it doesn’t happen overnight. It could take a couple of years.”
And when schools invest in training skilled workers—like California is doing with its new Healthy School Food Pathway Program—they may be more likely to stick around. “That’s what we’ve seen in New London, and it’s the thing I’m most proud of,” Giusti said of the first district Brigaid worked with, in Connecticut. “You have this team of people there, and a good number were there when we started seven years ago. They’re cooking food from scratch for 600 kids a day . . . and they’re proud of their positions.”
Another potential, and potentially counterintuitive, solution may be found in the ongoing push for universal school meals still playing out at the federal level and in an increasing number of states.
FRAC’s June report found that leaders in states where schools are offering free meals to all students reported multiple benefits that could help address labor challenges: the programs eased administrative burdens, improved operational efficiencies, and increased labor productivity. In schools that offer free meals to all, the total number of kids eating tends to increase, which also means more federal reimbursements to work with. As Giusti put it, simply, “Participation goes up, revenue goes up, and you have more money to support your program.”
(Return to top)
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
School cafeteria workers serve lunch to students in Nantwich, England.
(Photo CC-licensed by Cheshire East Council)
|
|
The Check-In: How Do School Meals in the U.S. Stack Up Against Those in Other Countries?
By KATIE RODRIGUEZ |
|
In 2021, the Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF), a nonprofit that provides global monitoring and advocacy to support the development of school feeding programs, ran a survey to capture the state of school meal programs across 139 countries—representing 81 percent of the world’s population. This is the second GCNF global survey (the first was in 2019), and it captured data for the school year that began in 2020, highlighting 183 programs with large-scale meal programs.
Arlene Mitchell, GCNF's executive director, believes school meal programs are misunderstood. “We've made them seem like charity handout programs, but they're multi-sectoral, complex programs that actually contribute significantly to economic development, short and long term,” she said.
We spoke with Mitchell about what the survey revealed, how the United States’ program stacks up to other school meal programs around the world, and how it can improve.
What does a good school meal program look like?
There are a number of factors that we consider. One is, are they covering the need? [And then] how comprehensive it is—is it more than just feeding kids? [Does] it include some nutrition education, some knowledge of where food comes from? In some cases, it includes things like children helping to prepare or serve the food. They're actually engaged in the program more meaningfully.
A third factor that we look for is a set of things that can contribute to sustainability, or to keep the program going. Are they engaging meaningfully with local farmers so that there is some economic opportunity locally alongside the program? Do they have a healthy relationship with the private sector in their country? Is it creating jobs? Is it in the national budget in a way that means that it can be sustained?
You look at countries at all levels of income and development. Which of the low-income countries stood out to you? Which ones did an exceptional job working with the resources that they have?
There are some pretty stunning examples of low-income countries actually trying harder, proportionately, than some rich countries to address hunger and nutrition in their school-aged kids. For years, one that has been astounding to me is Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world. Something like 89 percent of the budget for school meals is coming from the government, a very high percentage for a low-income country. And they're covering almost 100 percent of their [elementary] school students, which is just extraordinary. |
|
“The U.S. program has succeeded in feeding kids relatively nutritious food for decade, which pretty darn important, but I do think it could be improved.”
|
|
Let's jump to the U.S. What are some of the strengths of the programs here?
I think the pillars of the National School Lunch Program are admirable. They link to agriculture, they link education, they link to nutrition. That starting point is excellent. And it's reaching the kids who really need it. The fact that it is supported relatively sustainably by the national government is hugely important. If this was turned over to 50 states to run independently on their own, it would be a mess, because you would have 50 different standards, 50 different budgets.
And yet states have the flexibility to improve or change or tweak their program. They don't have total flexibility if they want government funding, but they do have some flexibility. So it allows for local government input and local community input, but there are some national standards and guidelines and criteria, which I think is important for a country as large and diverse as the United States.
Where does the U.S. stand against other more well-resourced countries?
There's a lot to be proud of in the program. But one of the biggest issues is that the country has lost its excitement about it. It's not getting a huge amount of public support or interest. That's not true in some of the other relatively wealthy countries. For example, Japan has an excellent school meal program. Finland is probably the best in the world. France and Italy have decent programs.
I had an Italian friend who used to bring me menus from the school meal program, and it reads like a fancy restaurant menu. And not only is it really cool food, but they also give parents advice on how to complement what they have at school with what they're going to have for dinner. Those programs are getting much more public attention and support. I think parents and others are much more engaged, much more involved than in much of the U.S.
The U.S. program has succeeded in feeding kids relatively nutritious food for decades, which is pretty darn important, but I do think it could be improved. |
|
“You can spend all kinds of money on a school building and kids will never come if they're hungry.”
|
|
How can it be improved?
In the U.S., time is money. And one thing that really upsets me about the school meal programs is that they've gotten squeezed in time. The more time you have at lunchtime, the more likely you are to eat a full menu, including fruits and vegetables. There also needs to be time to socialize over meals; it's hugely important.
Keeping it national is another thing. This movement for universally free school meals is really important. But if it becomes a state-by-state thing with no comparable rules and procedures across 50 states, it could get pretty rocky.
We need to simplify the school meal rules so that your average parent can understand it, your average school lunch [worker] can understand it, and the community can figure it out and support it. I think we can do a better job of integrating a food and nutrition education into our curriculum. School lunch is a separate thing in the U.S. It's not, “Here's where your food comes from and here's how it's grown.” There are gardens in a lot of schools, but not everywhere. And it isn't just integrated into [most students’] everyday thinking and activities.
Probably the biggest issue in the U.S. is the [larger] food environment. We are dealing with advertisements and marketing and fast food and what's cheap and available in your neighborhood. That is surrounding every nutritional problem in the U.S., including school kids having choices, particularly adolescents. We're not effectively addressing that, and it's causing huge, expensive problems of health and financial issues in the U.S. which largely link back to what food kids are eating.
What was the biggest standout from the last survey?
I think the number of emergencies suffered is just astounding. The pandemic was on top of those emergencies. So it's earthquakes, floods, civil unrest, drought—anything that affects your program. Climate change is clearly there. And again, it's usually those who need food the most who are having the biggest struggle.
We have a whole new section on climate questions this time around, because it's clearly impacting us much more than the world was tuned to.
Is there anything else that you want to make sure our readers understand?
Without the combination of good nutrition and good education, good investment in agriculture and nutrition . . . our future is stuck. You can spend all kinds of money on a school building and kids will never come if they're hungry. You can train thousands of teachers, but kids won’t learn if they're hungry or malnourished. School meals are a multi-sectoral investment, and it's the three pillars of development: education, health and nutrition, and agriculture. And that means you're investing in the pillars of development for the short-term for the kids who are eating. And you're creating a future that is healthier and more successful and productive.
(Return to top) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
What We're Reading |
|
Related reporting from around the web |
|
Corn dogs and hugs: Inside the Lunchroom on the First Day Back at School
By KARINA ELWOOD, The Washington Post
The school cafeteria is a staple in American culture: a place to connect with friends, an object of occasional ridicule for industrial-scale foods—and in some cases the only place where students receive reliable and healthy meals.
Locally Supported, Values-Based Framework for a University Foodservice Program
By CATHERINE G. CAMPBELL, CODY GUSTO, and JOHN M. DIAZ, Food Systems Journal
Using eight core values and six categories of metrics supported by local and regional food systems stakeholders in the community at and around the University of Florida, researchers have developed a model for other higher education institutions to develop a values-based institutional procurement program tailored to their local context.
The Impact of School Meals for All
By THE CENTER FOR ECOLITERACY
A collection of perspectives shared by students, parents, and school nutrition leaders across California, assessing the first year of the state’s universal free school meals program.
(Return to top) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
That's all for this issue. Thank you for reading, and thank you for being a member of the Civil Eats community. If this is your first time reading The Deep Dish (welcome!), be sure to check out our previous issues:
If someone forwarded this email to you, please support our work and become a member today. Questions? Compliments? Suggestions? We love to hear from our members: Please send us a note at members@civileats.com.
(Return to top) |
|
Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by forwarding it to a friend or sharing it on Facebook and Twitter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
