2010 Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act: Making the Most of This Opportunity
It’s that time again — the 2010 Child Nutrition Reauthorization is underway! If you want to see change in your child’s school food program, your moment to be heard is now. For those of you who are not up to speed on the Child Nutrition Act, it is an essential piece of legislation that helps shape the food programs in American schools. Unlike the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program, which are both permanently authorized, the Child Nutrition Act expires and needs to be reauthorized every 5 years.
Because this chance only comes around twice a decade, Reauthorization is an extremely important time to critically evaluate and address what is and is not working in the federal Child Nutrition Programs. This give Capitol Hill the opportunity to reshape and improve the food programs in over 100,000 public and private schools across the country. During this process, it is imperative that Congress allocate sufficient funding and resources in order to integrate greater access to fresh, healthy food for every child, as well as nutrition education that will help cement healthy habits in the future.
The Senate has already passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, on August 5, 2010. On a positive note, their version of the Reauthorization is focused on raising the level of nutrition of school food, as well as increasing the number of children who are fed. The bill includes valuable improvements in policies that address the dual challenges of obesity and hunger, but unfortunately the financial aspect leaves much to be desired.
Far too many children across the U.S. are affected by these forms of malnutrition, and the increases in the reimbursements that schools receive for the meals they provide are minuscule. The Senate’s goal of making higher quality food more available to more kids is fantastic, except that they haven’t allotted adequate funding to do so. Pledging $4.5 billion over the next ten years, divided among more than 30 million students is only an increase of about 6 cents per meal. This simply is not enough to make the fundamental changes we need.
School nutrition programs are struggling to stretch their limited food budgets as it is. It’s already a challenge to produce healthy, balanced meals for students. The rise of food and labor costs makes it nearly impossible for schools to even maintain their current lunch programs, let alone make meaningful improvements to the food they serve.
Furthermore, kids need to have access to healthy food throughout the school day. Wholesome breakfast and lunch meals are indispensable, but we need to see healthier items in snacks lines, concession stands, and a trend towards healthy vending machines to make sure that they have access to the nutrition they need, whenever they need it. All of these upgrades require money!
Congress needs to pass a Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act that encompasses fundamental changes, with proper funding. The House of Representatives still has not passed their bill. This is our chance to call on the Administration to use this time before elections to drastically improve on this legislation. We have an obligation to ensure that healthy, quality meals are provided to children every day at school.
Voice your support for healthy school food – this means demanding higher nutritional standards and increased federal funding of school food programs. Contact your Congressional leaders to let them know that child nutrition is a priority!
Call the Capitol switchboard: 202-225-3121. The toll-free number is 866-277-7617.
The operator will ask you which elected official’s office you would like to be connected to. A staff member will answer your call and you can either leave your message with them, or ask them to be transferred to the staff member who handles child nutrition. If that staff member is out of the office, leave a message and try calling them back later.
If you don’t know who your Representative is, visit http://www.house.gov (the “Find Your Representative” tab is located in the upper-left corner).
Time is running out — make the most of this opportunity! We can’t afford to put this off for another 5 years.