Officially titled the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, the latest renewal of the school lunch program was recently passed by the Senate and is waiting of full passage from Congress. Like its predecessors, the bill includes a wide variety of programs that address domestic hunger, primarily through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or "food stamps"), school lunches, and the Women Infants and Children program (WIC). While the breadth of this bill makes discussing all of the programs difficult, its important to highlight a few major changes.
It is the first non-inflationary funding increase to the school lunch program since 1973.
While generally seen as a necessary for improvement, this measure has still been a bit controversial. In order for this act to remain deficit neutral, the money for this increase is being taken out of SNAP. Based on current projections, it shouldn't have a significant impact. That is, relying on decreases in unemployment, SNAP's funding needs should decrease as the funds move over to the school lunch programs. We'll see whether this plays out correctly, but being deficit neutral was probably essential to the bill being passed through unanimous consent rather than with a formal vote, difficult to attain in such a busy legislative period.
It allows the Secretary of Agriculture to set national nutritional standards for all school lunch programs.
Setting a national standard for nutrition could mean a huge boost in select areas. While most programs have requirements for some important basics like nutrition content and vegetable servings, they are often lacking in important standards such as caps on sodium and sugar. Since health standards and guidelines are typically set on a national level, the switch makes sense. It removes the possibility nutritional oversights and takes an unnecessary burden off of the states.
It places the control of competitive foods in the hands of the USDA.
Of all the changes this bill makes, this is probably the biggest step forward for child nutrition. Competitive foods is a term meant to categorize everything sold at the school that is not a part of the USDA school meals program. Allowing the USDA to set standards for everything sold on a school campus might make you cringe- no more bake sales? - but it is essential to real improvements in child nutrition. Vending machines and concession stands can make nutritional gains in the cafeteria irrelevant, and if we really want one meal a day to make a difference, the children will have to eat it.
As I mentioned, this bill changes a lot more than the three things listed above, especially when it comes to easing the approval process. There's a great summary written by the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. And, of course, we'll have to keep an eye out for the what national standards do show up if this bill goes on through the house.
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