The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) administers the school meal programs that provide nutritious, lowcost meals to about 30 million children each day, according to USDA fiscal year 2019 data. School food authorities participating in the National School Lunch Program or the School Breakfast Program must comply…

Purpose/Objectives: The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) determine commonly used procedures for milk served in locations other than the cafeteria during breakfast service; and (2) examine the effectiveness of these practices in maintaining recommended milk temperatures. Methods: A national sample of 110 school nutrition directions selected…

Colorado's Healthy School Meals for All (HSMA) program provides free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of economic background, and aims to strengthen farm-to-school systems and school food service workers' pay. After unexpected increases in student participation, the program faced a significant budget shortfall that raised warning…

Purpose/Objective: To describe the perceived benefits and barriers to move beyond Community Eligibility Provisions (CEP) and initiating Universal Free Meals (UFM) in all districts across the U.S. that choose to participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP). Methods: Cross-sectional survey conducted in…

Household Food Insecurity (HFI) is a frequent challenge for children living in poverty that impacts social, emotional, and behavioral development. Federally assisted meal programs, such as the National School Breakfast Program, address HFI for students living in poverty through free or reduced-price breakfast. However, there are challenges for…

Background: The National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs reduce food insecurity and improve dietary intake. During the COVID-19 pandemic, school meals were provided to all children at no cost, regardless of income. This policy is known as Healthy School Meals For All (HSMFA). The purpose of the study was to examine the feasibility of a…

Public school students in the Black Belt of Alabama suffer from food insecurity disproportionately compared with national peers. Results of a recent mixed methods study indicated food insecurity levels that were three times the national average, with very low food security an alarming 11 times the national average. In the fight against hunger in…

According to the Ethiopia Ministry of Education (2015), school feeding initiatives, such as feeding children in food insecure conditions, providing educational resources, and school meals are essential for supporting access to general education. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of school feeding program on the academic…

Free school meals provide support to vulnerable families in the Republic of Ireland. Funding is allocated as part of an anti-poverty strategy. An investigation was carried out to discover if the school meal could be used to provide nutritious scratch-cooked food as well as providing opportunities for increased socialisation and pedagogy. Food…

The latest round of fiscal austerity in Ghana has meant that the feeding rate paid to the service providers of Ghana's school feeding programme is both frozen and unrealistically low. Accordingly, service providers adopt discretionary coping strategies. This qualitative case study, therefore, explores the impacts of austerity on children's school…

Background: Schools are a promising site for influencing the dietary intake of children and adolescents. The US Department of Agriculture recently released flexibilities to requirements for whole-grains, sodium, and low-fat milk in schools who demonstrated difficulty meeting nutrition standards for school meal programs. The support of School…

Background: School feeding programs' evaluation requires the measurement of food insecurity, a more objective indicator, within school in low-income countries. The Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF) uses subjective indicators to report school feeding coverage rates across many countries that participate in the global survey of school meal…

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 allows school districts to provide free meals to all students if over 40 percent of them are directly certified as free-meal eligible. While emerging evidence documents positive effects on student behavior and academics, critics worry that CEP has unintended…

In 2019, 135 million people in 55 countries were in food crises or worse, and 2 billion people did not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food. COVID-19 has exacerbated these hardships and may result in an additional 121 million people facing acute food insecurity by the end of 2020. Further, since the beginning of the…

The issue of school food and its role in the learning environment has been overlooked by educators, education researchers, and policy makers. This study uses observations and interviews in three high-poverty, urban schools to investigate how participants experience school food policy in their daily lives. Participants at all three schools believed…