Schools and educational leaders play critical roles in child nutrition. Recent legislation has focused attention on nutrient levels from meals consumed in schools. The purpose of this study was to compare school and packed lunches for nutritional profiles for preschoolers in New Jersey public school settings. This study also looked at nutrient…

Obesity influences many adolescents, and a potential setting that can help with this health concern is schools. Schools can help raise awareness of adolescent obesity and promote healthier eating habits among adolescents. Therefore, researchers must determine if school food programs influence high school adolescents' behavior regarding the…

BACKGROUND: The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) summer meal programs are designed to provide meals at no cost while school is out of session. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, several regulatory waivers were enacted to facilitate meal distribution. The aim of this study was to assess the rates of meal distribution before and after these…

As roughly 7.3 million students in rural school districts head back to school this fall, they remain largely unaware that the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill) is due to expire on September 30, 2024 (Hartman et al., 2023). Enacted on December 20, 2018, and temporarily renewed in September 2023, this critical piece of legislation…

State law requires the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to annually report to the Legislature the number of schools participating in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). The report must identify barriers to participation and make recommendations to increase participation. The CEP…

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows high-poverty schools to offer free meals to all students regardless of household income. Conceptualizing universal meal provision as a strategy to alleviate stigma associated with school meals, we hypothesize that CEP implementation reduces the incidence of suspensions, particularly for students…

Alternative poverty measures have been proposed in response to the emerging insufficiencies of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) eligibility data. The analysis presented here involves seven poverty measures. Using outcome measures as a yardstick, we can assess how poverty measures explain these outcomes and note variations between…

Alternative poverty measures have been proposed in response to the emerging insufficiencies of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) eligibility data. The analysis presented here involves seven poverty measures. Using outcome measures as a yardstick, we can assess how poverty measures explain these outcomes and note variations between…

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the paper draws on conceptions of culinary capital and socialisation to explore children's experiences of mealtime in one academy school. In this paper, the author argues how 'healthy eating' interventions have led to the neglect of the social significance of dining together. The paper highlights how children's…

The federal government has prescribed nutritional requirements for school meals since the authorization of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in 1946. Such requirements have changed throughout the course of history. Current law requires the Secretary of Agriculture to prescribe "minimum nutritional requirements" based on…

Faced with the problem of how to measure the magnitude of economic disadvantage in the populations served by schools or districts, researchers addressing school finance topics have invariably turned to the fraction of students eligible for free- or reduced-lunches (FRPL). But the facile dependence on FRPL may be problematic. A large and growing…

The purpose of the study was to explore the challenges experienced by teachers in their role in implementing the National School Nutrition Program in schools within the Harry Gwala District of KwaZulu-Natal. This article is extracted from a Ph.D. thesis that employed a qualitative research design, utilizing a sample of teachers who participate in…

This paper presents ethnographic work conducted to investigate how notions of culinary capital have the potential to shape the everyday experiences of children during mealtime in school. Children's early experiences with mealtimes and food are critical determinants for eating behaviour over the life course. The paper presents an account of…

As the sustainability imperative looms, mainstream educational research in the English-speaking world continues a long tradition of failing to see food as integral to education. Japan's tradition of "Shokuiku" (food education) stands in stark contrast, providing an external reference point to direct critical attention on Anglo-American…

This study was conducted to investigate the impact of school resources on student outcomes in urban K-12 Catholic schools participating in the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (DC OSP). DC OSP, a K-12 federally-funded voucher program enables economically disadvantaged families to enroll their children in private schools, including Catholic…