This morning, the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry unanimously approved Senator Blanche Lincoln’s proposal for the reauthorization for the Child Nutrition Act: The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The next step is for this bill to be marked up, read, and voted on by the entire Senate.
As we discussed on our blog on March 18, the bill includes some excellent policy provisions but does not include adequate funding to make fundamental change for school food that really supports health and learning.Among many health-supporting provisions, the bill gives the USDA the authority to set improved national nutrition standards for school meals and calls for a ban on the sale of junk food in schools. These are important changes, and we applaud their inclusion in the bill.
But the bill calls for less than half the funding that President Obama has proposed for child nutrition, not enough to truly shift the types of meals schoolchildren are served.
In a press release about the bill’s committee approval, Senator Blanche Lincoln said: “For far too many children, the only stable source of food that they can count on is what they get at school.”
We need to make sure that food is as healthful as possible.
Without sufficient funding, schools will continue to struggle in the effort to provide meals that have a positive impact on kids’ health and give them energy to focus in the classroom. Given that the incidence of childhood obesity has tripled in the last 30 years, now is the time to prioritize and fully fund this bill to ensure all students have access to quality and nutritious school lunches.
Now is the time to contact your senators and urge them to support increased funding for better school food in the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act.
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