Why nutritious meals matter in school

Rollbacks in school nutrition requirements disproportionately affect our nation’s most vulnerable students. 

Established by Congress in 1946, the National School Lunch Program is a federally subsidized program charged with providing low- or no-cost balanced meals to children each school day. The program was created, at least in part, to ensure that American farmers’ excess crops were purchased and consumed, but when the market for agriculture improved in the 1950s, the program shifted its aims to focus primarily on improving student nutrition, particularly for children from lower-income families. Specifically, the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 added subsidies for such students and extended them to include school breakfast. 

The program declined significantly in the 1980s and ’90s, largely as a result of Reagan-era budget cuts. During that time, many children lost their qualifying status for school meals; the nutritional quality of those meals plummeted (as epitomized by the Reagan administration’s 1981 decision to classify ketchup as a vegetable), and childhood obesity rates soared (Rude, 2016). Since then, however, standards have gradually improved, with Congress taking new steps to ensure that nutritional guidelines comport with scientific evidence. Notably, in 2010, and with strong backing from first lady Michelle Obama and her Let’s Move! campaign, Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which required that all grain products served in school contain at least 50% whole grains; reduced the amount of sodium, full-fat milk, and meat in school meals, and eliminated snacks with low nutritional value in favor of healthier choices, such as fruit cups and granola bars.  

In 2018, however, the Trump administration abruptly rolled back the limits on sodium and the whole-grain requirement. This prompted the states of New York, California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia, to file a lawsuit contesting these rollbacks, noting that there was no scientific evidence to support such changes — in fact, the new standards fall short of the government’s own Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Further, the plaintiffs argued, the new rules were put in place illegally, without adhering to requirements to provide the public with advance notice and the opportunity to air concerns about potential effects on students’ health, particularly among vulnerable populations, such as low-income children and children of color.  

The U.S. Department of Agriculture retorted that the new standards were, in fact, beneficial to states and students alike, and that the old rules were overly burdensome and costly. For instance, the department said, school districts and states spent an extra $1.22 billion in 2015 to provide healthier and more expensive meals, only to discover that many students didn’t like the food and would throw it in the trash, choosing to go hungry rather than eat it (Green & Piccoli, 2019; Kim, 2019). Sonny Perdue, the USDA secretary, argued that the Obama-era rules were too burdensome for school districts, in part due to these increased costs (Green and Piccoli, 2019). However, these claims do not seem to be supported by any scientific survey or study the agency has conducted or collected.  

Millions of students across the country have come to depend on the food they receive at their local school.

To be sure, there’s nothing objectionable about looking for responsible ways to cut government spending and eliminate unnecessary regulations. The changes proposed by the Trump administration, however, were far from responsible, and they risk undermining the health of already vulnerable children. Millions of students across the country have come to depend on the food they receive at their local school. In 2016, a New York Times article noted, nearly half the country’s students qualified for a subsidized school meal. (According to eligibility formulas, a student whose family income is less than 185% of the poverty threshold, or roughly $45,000 for a family of four, qualifies for a reduced-price lunch; if family income is less than 130% of the threshold, or roughly $32,000 a year, they qualify for a free lunch; Dynarski, 2016). No doubt, the need has risen dramatically since 2016 as COVID-19 has thrown the economy into turmoil and pushed many more families into poverty or close to it (Bauer, 2020; Chan & Taylor, 2020).  

Moreover, food insecurity has long taken a particularly harsh toll on students of color (Child Trends, 2018; New York State Office of the Attorney General, 2019). A decade ago, for example, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2010) found that 77% of the country’s Latinx 4th graders were eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, as were 74% of Black and 68% of American Indian/Alaskan Native 4th graders — by contrast, just 29% of white 4th graders were eligible. 

Quantity and quality: Both matter 

Chronic food shortages tend to have devastating developmental effects on students who experience them. For example, in a study of the links between food insufficiency and child development, researchers found that children who experience food insecurity were twice as likely to repeat a grade, three times more likely to be suspended, and significantly more likely to have behavioral difficulties and see a psychologist during their teenage years (Alaimo, Olson, & Frongillo, 2001).  

Further, food insecurity can take a toll before children ever even enter a classroom. Young children who experience chronic hunger are at higher risk for developmental delays and often suffer from iron deficiency, a condition that negatively influences development of basic motor and social skills. Having reviewed a host of studies on this topic, the organization Children’s Health Watch concluded that: 

The stress that family hardships, like food-insecurity, place on a young child physically alter the development of crucial brain structures controlling memory and psychosocial functioning. Early childhood is the narrow window during which one builds the basic capacity to learn and interact productively with others; disrupting this brief period diminishes children’s ability to acquire complex school skills as they grow, and later, job skills. (Hickson et al., 2013) 

As important as food security is to children’s cognitive and social development, so too is the nutritional quality of that food. A study by the Brookings Institute (Anderson, Gallagher, & Ritchie, 2017) examined how offering healthier school lunches affected end-of-year academic test scores over a period of five years. Using standards from the Nutrition Policy Institute, the researchers gave each school a Healthy Eating Index (HEI) score and looked at how test scores changed as HEI measures shifted, while controlling for grade, school, and year factors, as well as specific student and school characteristics, including race, English learners, family income, school budget, and student-to-teacher ratios. When schools provided meals with higher HEI scores, student test scores improved, on average, by 0.03 to 0.04 standard deviations, or about 4 percentile points. Further, students who qualified for free or reduced-price lunches saw increases that were 40% larger than those of other students. The report notes that these lower-income students are the ones who are most likely to eat the school lunches and therefore enjoy the benefits of a high-quality school meal. The study also found that nutritional quality, not simply calorie intake, was the important driving factor behind test score increases.  

Contracting with healthier school meal providers costs approximately an additional $80 per student per year more than using less nutritious options. Many school leaders might initially balk at that kind of an increase, but when compared with other methods for improving student achievement, the additional cost is negligible. The Brookings researchers found that reducing class sizes, for example, would be at least five times more expensive than providing healthier lunches (Anderson, Gallagher, & Ritchie, 2017).  

What can be done now? 

America’s most food-insecure, nutritionally deficient students face a steep uphill battle before they even enter kindergarten. Addressing this issue must become a policy priority. At the very minimum, lawmakers should ensure that these food-related inequities do not get any worse, as they surely would if the Trump administration’s proposed changes to the National School Lunch Program were to go into effect. To date, the courts have ruled to protect the existing, science-based nutritional standards, but nothing is guaranteed. On April 13, 2020, The United States District Court for the District of Maryland vacated the administration’s initial nutritional rollbacks; however, this decision was based on how the changes were implemented, rather than on problems with the rollbacks themselves (Fadulu, 2020a). As such, the fight over public school meal standards is far from finished. Additional nutritional rollbacks have been announced that would weaken nutritional standards for fruits, vegetables, and summer meal programs and broaden what counts as a snack, allowing for less healthy options to enter the mix (Fadulu, 2020b). These newer rollbacks have yet to be tested in court. 

It seems clear that the Trump administration aims to cut government spending by lowering student meal standards. Yet this will likely end up costing taxpayers more in the long run, since a rise in childhood food insecurity and malnutrition will eventually translate to lower rates of school completion, a greater incidence of health problems, and diminished workforce readiness (Deeds, 2015; Hunger-Free Minnesota, 2010), all of which may lead to increased dependence on government assistance. 

The fate of the Trump-era rollbacks may depend on the outcome of the upcoming election, but students’ health should not be tied to the whims of a particular president or their political appointees. To ensure that the National School Lunch Program continues to provide nutritious meals to children who need them, Congress and the states should enact laws and create funding streams that will provide for the nation’s most vulnerable students today and in the future, regardless of who sits in the president’s office.  

As a minimum, state legislators and educational departments should maintain the nutritional standards put forth in the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Better yet, lawmakers should improve upon those standards by reducing the amount of added sugar in school meals and snacks, directing schools to serve more water and less juice, banning sodas from school vending machines, and increasing fresh food options in cafeterias. States can also urge schools to place healthier, plant-based options at students’ eye-level and put less healthy options to the side, a move that can dramatically increase healthy choice selection (Ensaff et al., 2015). Moreover, regardless of whether school buildings open back up fully this coming fall, plans must be put in place to safely and consistently deliver quality meals to students. 

At the federal level, Congress should, as a start, direct the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office to audit and assess potential gains from increasing public school meals’ nutritional quality. Additionally, they should make available more federal money to assist states in following through with healthier regulations. Finally, any attempts made by a presidential administration, now or in the future, to roll back national nutritional standards should be deemed discriminatory in nature and made illegal under federal law.  

More than 60 years ago, the nation took responsibility for feeding its poorest students. Lawmakers passed the 1946 law because they knew it was not just an economic necessity but also the right thing to do. Improving upon those nutritional standards and creating more durable laws to enforce their implementation are the very least our government can do to bring about a more healthy and  and stable society.   

References 

Alaimo, K., Olson, C.M., & Frongillo, E.A. (2001). Food insufficiency and American school-aged children’s cognitive, academic, and psychosocial development. Pediatrics, 108 (10), 44-53. 

Anderson, M., Gallagher, J., & Ritchie, E.R. (2017, May 3). How the quality of school lunch affects students’ academic performance. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.  

Bauer, L. (2020, May 6). The COVID-19 crisis has already left too many children hungry in America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute. 

Chan, O. & Taylor, J. (2020, April 20). COVID-19 lays bare vulnerabilities in U.S. food security. New York, NY: The Century Foundation.  

Child Trends. (2018, September 17). Key facts about food insecurity. Bethesda, MD: Author.  

Deeds, C. (2015, August 24). Food for thought: How food insecurity affects a child’s education. Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum. 

Dynarski, S. (2016, August 12). Why American schools are even more unequal than we thought. The New York Times.  

Ensaff, H., Homber, M., Sahota, P., Braybrook, D., Coan, S., & McLeod, H. (2015, June). Food choice architecture: An intervention in a secondary school and its impact on students’ plant-based food choices. Nutrients, 7 (6), 4426-4437.  

Fadulu, L. (2020a, April 14). Court strikes down Trump rollback of school nutrition rules. The New York Times. 

Fadulu, L. (2020b, April 14). Trump targets Michelle Obama’s school nutrition guidelines on her birthday. The New York Times. 

Green, E. & Piccoli, S. (2019, April 3). Trump administration sued over rollback of school lunch standards. The New York Times. 

Hickson, B.A., Ettinger de Cuba, S., Weiss, I., Donofrio, G., & Cook, J. (2013, September). Too hungry to learn: Food insecurity and school readiness. Boston, MA: Children’s HealthWatch. 

Hunger-Free Minnesota. (2010, September). Cost/benefit hunger impact study. n.p.: Author. 

Kim, C. (2019, April 6). Trump’s administration let schools serve unhealthy lunches again. States are suing. Vox. 

National Center for Education Statistics. (2010, July). Status and trends in the education of racial and ethnic minorities. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. 

New York State Office of the Attorney General. (2019, April 3). Attorney General James and multistate coalition sue Trump administration for gutting key nutritional standards for school meals [Press release]. Albany, NY: Author.  

Rude, E. (2016, September 19). An abbreviated history of school lunches in America. TIME.