On March 4, the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee held the first of a series of hearings on the reauthorization of programs under the Child Nutrition Act (P.L. 86-642), focusing its attention on the school breakfast and lunch programs.
The Child Nutrition Act was first enacted in 1966 as an anti-hunger program under President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” and has been amended many times. In addition to the federal school meal programs (the School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Summer Food Service Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the Special Milk Program), the Act authorizes, through FY2003, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which provides grants for food and nutrition education for low-income mothers and their children.
Ranking Member Tom Harkin (D-IA) presided over the hearing, filling in for committee Chair Thad Cochran (R-MS). The committee heard testimony from expert witnesses on food service programs, nutrition education, child obesity, and funding needs.
Gaye Lynn MacDonald of the American Food Service Association told the committee that the reauthorization of the child nutrition programs “offers an excellent opportunity for the Congress to consider changes that will improve health outcomes for children and further the goals of ‘No Child Left Behind.’” She outlined several legislative goals of her organization, including eliminating barriers to participation in federal school programs and providing more funding for nutrition education programs that would address the problem of obesity and establish lifelong healthy habits in children.
“Many children from families qualified in the reduced price category are not participating in the lunch and breakfast programs because they can’t afford the fee of 40 cents for a lunch or 30 cents for a breakfast,” she told the committee. “While that may not seem like a lot of money to those of us in this room, to families with household incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty line, many with more than one child, it is often too much,” she explained.
She recommended that school food programs should operate like the WIC program. “In the WIC program, all those with family incomes below 185 percent of poverty, and those who otherwise qualify, receive benefits without charge,” she said. “This same income guideline should be extended to the school nutrition programs,” she urged.
Ms. MacDonald asked the committee to put more money into nutrition education. “Financial support for nutrition education continues to fade into oblivion,” she said. “Students cannot learn to make healthy food choices without access to age appropriate nutrition education,” she emphasized. “At a minimum, we propose an entitlement of one-half cent per meal be allocated to states to develop state and local infrastructures to deliver nutrition education,” she added.
Additionally, she testified that “there may be an excessive error rate in the numbers of students receiving free and reduced-price benefits” in federal school meal programs. She suggested that many eligible participants are “intimidated by excessive income verification requirements.” She recommended “making school meal application approval valid for a full year” rather than on a month-to-month basis, and simplifying the regulatory burden.
Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also discussed issues related to the eligibility requirements for free and reduced-price school food programs. He told the committee that “in most programs that limit benefits to families or individuals who are below certain income levels, errors occur.” How to address this issue in the school lunch program is particularly difficult, he said.
“One possible response to school lunch certification is to expand the verification of free and reduced-price meal applications,” explained Mr. Greenstein, adding that data from pilot projects on school lunch verification programs have highlighted a major problem. “Three out of four children whose free or reduced-price meals have been terminated under the existing verification procedures were terminated not because they were found ineligible, but because of lack of response by their families to a request for verification,” he said. “What makes these figures particularly alarming is that the available data suggest that a very large share of the children terminated due to non-response are, in fact, eligible,” he added.
Susan Borra of the American Dietetic Association addressed the child obesity issue and urged the committee to increase the role of nutrition education in schools across the nation. She told the committee that the number of children who are overweight in the United States is at an all-time high, and overweight children tend to become obese adults. Obesity rates have tripled since 1970, and 60 percent of overweight children have at least one cardiovascular risk factor such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure.
Our research shows that “people do not seem to connect the relationship between overweight and chronic disease,” she explained, and added that children and adolescents tend to focus on appearance rather than health. Adolescent girls become concerned about weight when they are dissatisfied with their appearance, and when they try to change their eating habits in order to lose weight, they skip meals rather than trying to modify their eating habits.
“The fact that more than half of all children in the United States eat breakfast, lunch or a snack at school demonstrates the degree to which schools can support the development of life-long balanced nutritional and exercise habits,” she said. “Much more than lunch is on the table in the school lunch program. Developing children’s knowledge and building healthy eating behaviors must be considered and supported,” she added.
Ms. Borra recommended a three-pronged approach in addressing child health and nutrition issues: placing trained professionals in decision-making roles; setting nutrition standards with accountability; and developing nutrition education “that is evaluated and complements the ability to select a healthful diet with foods that are served in the school nutrition program.”
