tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/child-hunger-26869/articlesChild Hunger – The Conversation2023-05-03T10:53:25Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2036912023-05-03T10:53:25Z2023-05-03T10:53:25Z47% of South Africans rely on social grants - study reveals how they use them to generate more income<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522734/original/file-20230425-28-ostfaw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Informal trading is one way grant recipients use to supplement their income. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa has one of the world’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/landmark-study-shows-how-child-grants-empower-women-in-brazil-and-south-africa-157537">most expansive</a> social grant system: <a href="https://static.pmg.org.za/SASSA_2022-23_Annual_Performance_Plan.pdf#page=9">47% of the population</a> relies on a monthly grant. Of these, 18 million are permanent beneficiaries and about 10 million receive a temporary Social <a href="https://www.gov.za/services/social-benefits/social-relief-distress">Relief of Distress Grant</a>. This was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic for working age adults who do not receive formal social protection, such as unemployment insurance and for those engaged in informal work.</p>
<p>The vast majority of the grants are <a href="https://www.sassagrants.co.za/types-of-sassa-grants/child-support-grant/#:%7E:text=The%20Child%20Support%20Grant%20is,for%20caring%20for%20the%20child">child support grants</a> (R500 or around US$27 a month) paid to a child’s primary caregiver based on a means test. </p>
<p>There is ample, global <a href="https://odi.org/en/publications/cash-transfers-what-does-the-evidence-say-a-rigorous-review-of-impacts-and-the-role-of-design-and-implementation-features/">evidence</a> that such cash transfers bring many positive outcomes. For instance, they reduce child hunger, improve school attendance and help reduce poverty.</p>
<p>Although social grants are <a href="https://www.unicef.org/southafrica/media/4201/file/%20ZAF-review-child-support-grant-uses-implementation-obstacles-2008.pdf">spent largely on food</a>, there is growing evidence that they are also used for <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00220388.2019.1650170">productive investments</a> in livelihood activities. These are actions people undertake to meet their basic needs such food, shelter and clothing. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X20300826?via%3Dihub">Recipients find various ways</a> to “grow” their grant by engaging in informal work and other income generating activities.</p>
<p>But not much is known about the nature and scope of these activities, or how the government and other social partners like NGOs, development agencies and corporate social investment (CSI) initiatives could support recipients’ agency and strengthen their livelihood strategies. This is important to consider against the backdrop of South Africa’s <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/P02113rdQuarter2022.pdf#page=7">32.8% unemployment rate</a>. </p>
<p>To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a quantitative analysis of social grant beneficiaries’ employment status drawn from <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/csda-_-social-grants-livelihood-_-research-brief-_-a4-_-jan-2023_5-1.pdf">household survey data</a> from 2008 to 2021. We wanted to get a better idea of how many grant recipients – caregivers of children, older persons, people with disabilities and unemployed adults engage – in informal work and income generating activities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-relief-grant-how-it-can-be-used-to-help-young-people-into-jobs-196512">South Africa's relief grant: how it can be used to help young people into jobs</a>
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<p>We found that 31% of grant beneficiaries engage in informal work. These are jobs with no written contract and where the businesses are not registered for tax. They include care work, informal trading or self employment. In 2021, grant beneficiaries were 13% more likely to be doing informal work than formal work. There was a greater probability of child support grant beneficiaries being engaged in survival-oriented business activities (11%) followed by 9% of beneficiaries of the Social Relief of Distress grant and 4% of old age pensioners.</p>
<p>Although the study found that the proportion of self-employed social grant recipients appears to be small, this is not the case when compared to <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/publication/south-africa-economic-update-south-africa-s-labor-market-can-benefit-from-young-entrepreneurs-self-employment#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CIn%20South%20Africa%2C%20self%2D,%2C%20Mexico%2C%20or%20Brazil.%E2%80%9D">self-employment (10%)</a> as a proportion of total employment. In this regard South Africa fairs poorer than other upper middle income countries such as Turkey, Brazil and Mexico.</p>
<p>Second, we <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/csda-_-social-grants-livelihood-_-research-brief-_-a4-_-jan-2023_5-1.pdf">synthesised the findings</a> from three qualitative studies by post-graduate students of the <a href="https://www.uj.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/csda-_-social-grants-livelihood-_-research-brief-_-a4-_-jan-2023_5-1.pdf">Centre for Social Development in Africa</a> and the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg. </p>
<p>Grant beneficiaries’ stories emerging from these studies show a strong desire to be productive – such as having a job, or starting their own business and to find ways to improve income and personal and family well-being. They also faced significant barriers in promoting liveihoods, reducing poverty and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351384793_Livelihood_activities_and_well%20being_outcomes_of_cash_transfer_beneficiaries_in_Soweto_South_Africa">improving psychosocial well-being</a>.
These findings point to the need to design multi-pronged poverty reduction strategies that combine grants with livelihood support services.</p>
<h2>Livelihood activities</h2>
<p>Participants across all three studies articulated a strong motivation to improve their lives. Others expressed a strong desire for independence, to be active and productive.</p>
<p>In all three studies, regardless of the grant received and its value, interviewees said the grant monies were insufficient to meet their needs.</p>
<p>They found various ways to “grow” their grant. Some were income generating activities like buying and selling of goods, providing services such as building, painting, photography, running restaurants or taverns, renting accommodation and traditional healing. Some played <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/List-of-fahfee-numbers_tbl1_321642444">fahfee</a> (a form of betting) or engaged in community gardening, sewing, recycling and beadwork.</p>
<p>Others invested in future livelihood strategies such as supporting children with their job search. Some used their grants as seed money to cover business start-up costs, buy new equipment such as a chip fryer, beads for their craft work or to expand their existing operations. </p>
<p>We also found that some recipients were investing a portion of their grants, primarily through <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-south-african-stokvels-manage-their-lending-activities-outside-the-courts-135449">stokvels</a> (a type of informal credit union) or savings schemes. They hoped to reinvest savings in their businesses or to use the money during an emergency. Across the three qualitative studies, beneficiaries reported that households with multiple income streams were more financially stable.</p>
<p>The most common barriers identified were related to </p>
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<li><p>women’s childcare responsibilities in the home;</p></li>
<li><p>the opportunity costs of working (such as high transport and childcare costs);</p></li>
<li><p>a lack of jobs:</p></li>
<li><p>lack of capital;</p></li>
<li><p>lack of access to affordable micro loans;</p></li>
<li><p>competition for customers from large retailers;</p></li>
<li><p>a lack of experience, knowledge and skills in, for example, financial literacy </p></li>
<li><p>some expressed concerns about crime and violence in the community.</p></li>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ex-offenders-in-south-africa-should-get-a-resettlement-grant-heres-why-101551">Ex-offenders in South Africa should get a resettlement grant. Here's why</a>
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<p>Few grant beneficiaries were able to access formal support services from the government. Only one group of women crafters engaged in bead work received support from a local cooperative. Most turned to their social networks, family and friends to support them, provide guidance, advice and financial assistance. Due to a lack of access to small loans, they turned to money lenders when they needed to access cash resulting in indebtedness.</p>
<p>A major barrier also relates to the precarious nature of informal work and the lack of protection for vulnerable workers.</p>
<h2>Implications for social development policies</h2>
<p>Informal work is a crucial livelihood strategy for grant beneficiaries who supplement their income through multiple livelihood activities. Most worked in elementary occupations, services, sales and craft related trade. A small proportion are self-employed, running survivalist businesses. This is contrary to the view that beneficiaries are passive and disengaged from the labour market or <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340319992_How_cash_transfers_enable_agency_through_livelihoods_in_South_Africa">do not desire to work</a>. </p>
<p>There is a need for greater recognition of informal work and its role in poverty reduction as a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333199180_Informal_sector_employment_and_poverty_in_South_Africa_identifying_the_contribution_of_'informal'_sources_of_income_on_aggregate_poverty_measures">national policy objective</a>. Moreover, social grants plus complementary livelihood supports are needed. These include access to capital, credit and small loans. The development of knowledge and skills and mentoring and coaching are also critical. </p>
<p>Few government departments target beneficiaries for livelihoods support such as small-scale farming and entrepreneurship programmes. There is a need to explore innovative delivery modalities – whereby livelihood supports may be crafted onto existing government programmes. Incentives should be provided for those who wish to pursue productive activities.</p>
<p>There is room to scale up livelihood support through existing governmental, NGOs, development agencies and CSI programmes. However, more research and experimental intervention research is needed to inform the design of livelihood support policies and strategies.</p>
<p><em>Viwe Dikoko and Jade Archer co-authored the research brief on which this article is based.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203691/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leila Patel receives funding from the University of Johannesburg and previously from the DSI/NRF for her Chair in Welfare and Social Development, Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg </span></em></p>As much as 31% of grant beneficiaries engage in informal work to ‘grow’ their income.Leila Patel, Professor of Social Development Studies, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1845282022-06-07T21:18:08Z2022-06-07T21:18:08ZEnding child hunger and food insecurity needs to be a top priority in Canada as well as globally<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467557/original/file-20220607-16-zd5db7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C5127%2C3440&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the last three decades, the world has made considerable progress in reducing child malnutrition, but there is still work to do.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture are key to reaching one of the United Nations’ most critical Sustainable Development Goals: <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal2">Zero Hunger</a>.</p>
<p>The goal is important for all people, but is crucial for children. There is work to do to meet this goal not just in low- and middle-income countries, but also in high-income countries. In <a href="https://proof.utoronto.ca/food-insecurity/#:%7E:text=1%2520in%25206%2520Canadian%2520children,these%2520households%2520are%2520food%252Dinsecure.">Canada</a> and the <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/2017-map-the-meal-gap-child-food-insecurity_0.pdf">United States</a>, <a href="https://www.fao.org/3/al936e/al936e00.pdf">food insecurity affects one in six children</a>. </p>
<p>Children rely on adults to nourish their growth and <a href="https://data.unicef.org/resources/fed-to-fail-2021-child-nutrition-report/">prepare them to become successful adults</a> in an increasingly <a href="https://www.fao.org/state-of-food-security-nutrition">precarious world of pandemics, war and climate change</a> — all of which threaten the global food supply, food affordability and the equitable distribution of food.</p>
<p>In my book <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/small-bites"><em>Small Bites: Biocultural Dimensions of Children’s Food and Nutrition</em></a>, I examine the challenges of feeding and nourishing children.</p>
<h2>Feeding children is a collective responsibility</h2>
<p>As a species, humans are “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674060326">co-operative breeders</a>.” For much of our evolutionary history, nurturing children has fallen on parents, grandparents, older siblings and extended relations.</p>
<p>Today that responsibility also extends to institutions such as daycares, schools and governments. It’s a responsibility that regrettably we have not adopted as our highest collective priority.</p>
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<img alt="Four children, three of them sitting at a table with green lunch trays." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467559/original/file-20220607-16-fxr7qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467559/original/file-20220607-16-fxr7qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467559/original/file-20220607-16-fxr7qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467559/original/file-20220607-16-fxr7qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467559/original/file-20220607-16-fxr7qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467559/original/file-20220607-16-fxr7qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467559/original/file-20220607-16-fxr7qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Today, the collective responsibility for child nutrition includes institutions such as daycares, schools and ultimately governments.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>In the past three decades, the world has made considerable progress in reducing child malnutrition.</p>
<p>In Nepal, where I conducted children’s nutrition research in the 1990s, an alarming <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145738">60 per cent of children under five were stunted</a>, a term used to describe kids who are short for their age due to chronic malnutrition.</p>
<p>From 2001 to 2011 the prevalence of stunting in Nepal declined to 41 per cent from 57 per cent — the most rapid improvement ever documented.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2017.02.001">A study</a> of this reduction in Nepal isolated five factors:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>improvements in maternal nutrition, increasing average birth weights</p></li>
<li><p>rapid growth in household income</p></li>
<li><p>educational improvements, especially in maternal education</p></li>
<li><p>increased access to health care, particularly prenatal, neonatal and postnatal</p></li>
<li><p>sizeable improvements in sanitation</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These improvements were brought about by broad social, economic and policy changes at both community and national levels, featuring the combined efforts of many partners.</p>
<p>Still, the world has a long way to go to achieve zero hunger by 2030, in keeping with the Sustainable Development Goals.</p>
<p><a href="https://data.unicef.org/resources/jme-report-2021/">In 2020</a>, 22 per cent of all children in the world under the age of five were stunted, 6.7 per cent suffered from wasting (being too thin for their height due to acute malnutrition) and 5.7 per cent were overweight.</p>
<p>Stunting and wasting are mostly low-income country phenomena, but even children being overweight — often assumed to occur only in high-income countries — is now common in middle- and low-income populations. The so-called “<a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/255413/WHO-NMH-NHD-17.3-eng.pdf">double burden of malnutrition</a>” — being both undernourished and overweight — occurs in tandem with stunting and wasting within an individual, household or population. </p>
<p>For example, an individual with obesity may also have nutritional deficiencies due to a poor diet. At the household level, one member may be living with obesity while another has a nutrient deficiency such as anemia. On a larger scale, this double burden can affect neighbourboods, cities and regions. </p>
<h2>Child food insecurity in Canada and the United States</h2>
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<img alt="Brown paper bags with lunch items in them, seen from above" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467542/original/file-20220607-26-nbgu3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467542/original/file-20220607-26-nbgu3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467542/original/file-20220607-26-nbgu3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467542/original/file-20220607-26-nbgu3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467542/original/file-20220607-26-nbgu3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467542/original/file-20220607-26-nbgu3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467542/original/file-20220607-26-nbgu3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Bagged lunches await stapling before being distributed to students at a U.S. elementary school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)</span></span>
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<p>Child malnutrition is no stranger to high-income countries. In <a href="https://proof.utoronto.ca/food-insecurity">Canada</a> and the <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/2017-map-the-meal-gap-child-food-insecurity_0.pdf">United States</a>, food insecurity is more prevalent in households with children under 18, affecting about 17 per cent in this age group.</p>
<p>In Canada, food-insecure households with children are more likely to be headed by <a href="https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/FOOD_INSECURITY_2020_EXEC_EN.pdf">lone parents and more likely to identify as Black or Indigenous</a>.</p>
<p>While the U.S. has a range of federally funded programs to address child hunger, such as the <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic#:%7E:text=The%2520Special%2520Supplemental%2520Nutrition%2520Program%2520for%2520Women%252C%2520Infants%252C,who%2520are%2520found%2520to%2520be%2520at%2520nutritional%2520risk.">Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children</a> and the <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp">National School Lunch Program</a>, Canada has no government-funded programs dedicated to supporting children’s nutrition. It is the only nation in the <a href="https://www.healthyschoolfood.ca/post/school-food-in-the-g7-the-time-is-ripe-for-canada-to-catch-up">G7 without a national school meal program</a>.</p>
<p>Instead, Canada has a range of charitable efforts such as school breakfast programs and food banks staffed by volunteers.</p>
<p>What’s especially concerning in Canada is the lack of action at all levels of government to address the problem of food insecurity for children that is prevalent — and growing. In a <a href="https://www.unicef.ca/en/unicef-report-card-14-child-well-being-sustainable-world">UNICEF report</a> on youth well-being in 41 high-income nations, Canada was ranked 37 in working toward the Zero Hunger goal for children. Canada ranked ahead of only Malta, Turkey, Mexico and Bulgaria, with the U.S. ranked just above Canada at 36.</p>
<h2>What can we do to end child hunger and malnutrition?</h2>
<p>Reducing child poverty is critical.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/upshot/biden-child-tax-credit.html">U.S. President Joe Biden’s expansion of the existing federal child tax credit in 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic expired after Congress failed to extend it in 2022</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A child sitting in a grocery cart reaching for produce, with a man in a yellow shirt behind him" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467560/original/file-20220607-18-27qhan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467560/original/file-20220607-18-27qhan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467560/original/file-20220607-18-27qhan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467560/original/file-20220607-18-27qhan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467560/original/file-20220607-18-27qhan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467560/original/file-20220607-18-27qhan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467560/original/file-20220607-18-27qhan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Rising inflation has increased food costs, which has only heightened the crisis in children’s food security and malnutrition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In Canada, cash transfers to families such as the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/canada-child-benefit-overview.html">Canada Child Benefit</a> have helped to reduce poverty, but are not enough. <a href="https://proof.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Paper-Tarasuk-BIG-EN-17.06.13-1712.pdf">Basic income guarantee</a> programs would go far toward reducing the most severe food insecurity among those at the lowest income levels.</p>
<p>In 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal government announced its long-awaited <a href="https://agriculture.canada.ca/sites/default/files/legacy/pack/pdf/fpc_20190614-en.pdf">National Food Policy</a> that included, among other promises, a federal commitment to work with the provinces and territories to develop a national school food program to deliver healthy food to children before and during school.</p>
<p>Sadly, COVID-19 has stalled the implementation of that policy, while rising inflation has <a href="https://www.thestar.com/business/2022/05/18/lettuce-oranges-butter-and-beef-the-cost-of-grocery-staples-has-surged-again-and-theres-no-end-in-sight.html">increased food costs</a>, which only heightened the crisis in children’s food security and malnutrition. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8863987/baby-formula-shortage-in-canada-leads-to-panic-buying">infant formula shortage in the United States that also affected Canada</a> is emblematic of the necessity for government intervention to ensure that goods vital to children’s survival are not under the complete control of the food industry. </p>
<p>Now more than ever, food policies targeting children are needed from all branches of government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184528/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tina Moffat receives funding from SSHRC, CIHR, and GWF. </span></em></p>Child malnutrition is no stranger to high-income countries. In Canada and the U.S., food insecurity affects one in six children under 18, but policies to address the issue are still lacking.Tina Moffat, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1790582022-03-14T12:22:23Z2022-03-14T12:22:23ZSchools will stop serving free lunch to all students – a pandemic solution left out of a new federal spending package<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451702/original/file-20220312-25-1vg2wv5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=105%2C67%2C4903%2C3409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About 30 million students eat school lunches daily.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/african-american-school-girl-holding-lunch-on-a-royalty-free-image/136801944?adppopup=true">JGI/Jamie Grill/Tetra Images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Public schools have been serving all students free meals since the COVID-19 pandemic first disrupted K-12 education. In March 2022, Congress rejected calls to keep up the federal funding required to sustain that practice and left that money out of a <a href="https://khn.org/morning-breakout/free-school-meals-not-included-in-1-5-trillion-budget/">US$1.5 trillion spending package</a> that <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-aid-biden-signs-omnibus-bill/">President Joe Biden signed</a> into law on March 11, 2022. We asked food policy expert <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fPDErC8AAAAJ&hl=en">Marlene Schwartz</a> to explain why free meals make a difference and what will happen next.</em></p>
<h2>How did the COVID-19 pandemic initially affect the school lunch program?</h2>
<p>In March 2020, nearly all U.S. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/20/818300504/schools-race-to-feed-students-amid-coronavirus-closures">K-12 school buildings closed</a> due to the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the federal government’s <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp">National School Lunch Program</a>, quickly <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/fns-disaster-assistance/fns-responds-covid-19/child-nutrition-covid-19-waivers">granted waivers</a> to increase program flexibility and accommodate the challenges of the pandemic.</p>
<p>These waivers, which have been renewed several times, were critically important for school food service programs as the programs <a href="https://doi.org/10.5304/jafscd.2021.102.020">abruptly shifted</a>
away from serving meals in cafeterias and designed new distribution models to continue to feed students. Many school meal staff across the country created <a href="https://thecounter.org/covid-19-school-lunch-minneapolis-houston-kansas-city-san-francisco/">grab-and-go meals</a> that families could pick up, which was particularly important in the spring of 2020 and the following school year. Another major change, which has continued during the 2021-2022 school year, is that school systems are able to serve meals to all students at no cost.</p>
<p>Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly <a href="https://schoolnutrition.org/aboutschoolmeals/schoolmealtrendsstats/">30 million lunches were served every school day</a> to K-12 students through the National School Lunch Program. Schools provided roughly three-quarters of those meals at reduced rates or no cost at all – with the federal government reimbursing a portion of the cost of those meals. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451653/original/file-20220311-22-iqtor8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Children near a school bus, wearing masks, carry bags of food." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451653/original/file-20220311-22-iqtor8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451653/original/file-20220311-22-iqtor8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451653/original/file-20220311-22-iqtor8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451653/original/file-20220311-22-iqtor8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451653/original/file-20220311-22-iqtor8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451653/original/file-20220311-22-iqtor8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451653/original/file-20220311-22-iqtor8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children like these in Santa Fe, N.M., could pick up bagged meals at bus stops when their schools had closed their doors amid virus outbreaks in 2020 and 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakNewMexico/16263619130e462d81806328e5badd28/photo?Query=school%20meals&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1074&currentItemNo=13">AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How much money is involved?</h2>
<p>The program cost <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/child-nutrition-programs/national-school-lunch-program">$14 billion in 2019</a>, before the pandemic disrupted it.</p>
<p>The price of a school lunch for families without free or reduced-cost meals varies. In 2017, full-price lunches tended to run between <a href="https://schoolnutrition.org/aboutschoolmeals/schoolmealtrendsstats">$2.50 and $2.75</a> apiece. </p>
<h2>Are all public school students still getting free meals?</h2>
<p>Yes. However, that will no doubt change once the latest waiver expires on <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/covid-19-child-nutrition-response-85">June 30, 2022</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://frac.org/news/fracdissapointedomnibusmarch2022">Advocates urged Congress</a> to keep funding school nutrition programs at higher levels. But Congress <a href="https://frac.org/news/fracdissapointedomnibusmarch2022">did not include that money</a> in the <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/budget/2022/03/congress-seeks-updates-on-state-of-the-federal-workforce-in-1-5t-omnibus-spending-deal/">$1.5 trillion spending bill</a> House and Senate lawmakers passed in March 2022.</p>
<p>This means that next fall, most schools will have to resume the old three-tiered system where some families don’t pay at all, some receive discounted lunches, and others must pay full price.</p>
<p>Two states will buck that trend. <a href="https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/univmealsqandapart2.asp">California</a> and <a href="https://www.pressherald.com/2021/07/11/maine-among-first-states-to-make-school-meals-free-for-all-students/">Maine</a> will continue providing universal school meals after the federal waiver ends due to measures their state legislators passed and governors signed into law during the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>At the federal level, more than a dozen senators and roughly 50 members of the House of Representatives backed proposed <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/s1530">legislation in 2021 that would permanently make school lunch free</a> for all students, regardless of their income. There is significant <a href="https://frac.org/news/introuniversalschoolmealsmay2021">support</a> for this idea among advocates, but the future of this type of federal legislation remains to be seen. </p>
<h2>What are the advantages of making school meals free to everyone?</h2>
<p>In my view, the biggest advantage to universal school meals is that more students actually eat nutritious school meals. Following the regulations that emerged from the 2010 <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/healthy-hunger-free-kids-act">Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act</a>, the nutritional quality of school meals improved significantly, and a recent study found that schools typically provide the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.5262">healthiest foods that children eat</a> all day.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13030911">The research shows</a> that making school meals free for everyone improves attendance and <a href="https://theconversation.com/free-school-meals-for-all-children-can-improve-kids-health-161957">boosts diet quality</a>. It also decreases the risk of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-food-insecurity-152746">food insecurity</a> and the <a href="https://www.fordfoundation.org/news-and-stories/stories/posts/fighting-the-stigma-of-free-lunch-why-universal-free-school-lunch-is-good-for-students-schools-and-families/">stigma associated</a> with receiving a free meal. When no one has to pay, the growing problem of <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-serve-kids-food-in-school-not-shame-81787">school meal debt</a> is also eliminated.</p>
<p>There are important logistical benefits to universal school meals. Families don’t have to <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/applying-free-and-reduced-price-school-meals">fill out any paperwork</a> to establish their eligibility for free or reduced-price meals. And cafeteria staff can focus on serving the meals if they don’t need to <a href="https://schoolnutrition.org/aboutschoolmeals/schoolmealtrendsstats/">track payments</a>.</p>
<h2>What’s wrong with charging some students for lunch again?</h2>
<p>You have to look at the costs and benefits of the big picture. Universal school meals provide significant benefits to the school community as a whole – most notably, reductions in food insecurity and improvements in student diet quality. I believe these benefits are far greater than the marginal cost of providing free meals to students who would otherwise pay. </p>
<p>The fall of 2022 is also much too early to revert back to the three-tiered system because school food programs continue to face significant challenges. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/01/1077371645/schools-scramble-to-feed-kids-as-supply-chain-issues-persist">Supply chain disruptions</a> have made it harder to buy some kinds of food, including <a href="https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/resource-files/FNS-Survey-Supply-Chain-Disruptions.pdf">chicken and whole grain products</a>. In addition, many schools are having trouble <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/results-fns-administered-school-food-authority-survey-supply-chain-disruption">hiring the staff they need</a> to prepare and serve the meals, and <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings/">inflation is increasing food costs</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="vRNnG" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/vRNnG/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>What do you see happening in the future?</h2>
<p>Ideally, the federal government will reconsider this issue and support universal school meals.</p>
<p>If that does not happen, advocates, policymakers and researchers will be watching what happens in California and Maine. We will be able to compare what happens in these states versus those that do not continue to provide all students with free meals. My hope is that this information will inform future decisions about implementing universal school meals for all students nationally.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179058/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marlene B. Schwartz receives funding from the USDA and the Connecticut State Department of Education. </span></em></p>A food policy expert explains how school lunches changed during the COVID-19 pandemic and what’s wrong with going back to the normal system now.Marlene B. Schwartz, Director, Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health and Professor, Human Development and Family Sciences, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1559342021-03-30T11:36:15Z2021-03-30T11:36:15ZHow school lunch could improve when classrooms are full again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389649/original/file-20210315-17-16klgq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C5439%2C3587&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">School lunch is a lot less fun during a pandemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/school-children-are-spaced-apart-in-one-of-the-rooms-used-news-photo/1228514555?adppopup=true">Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The COVID-19 pandemic has completely upended school lunches, like just about everything else for students. Once schools turned into virtual learning platforms, they found <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-connecticuts-schools-have-managed-to-maintain-lunch-distribution-for-kids-who-need-it-most-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-154308">creative ways to feed students</a>, including distributing meals at outdoor <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305875">pickup locations</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Meanwhile, the <a href="https://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/12.22.20-Universal-School-Meals-Sign-On-Letter.pdf">pandemic has renewed and strengthened national</a> and <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB364">state-level calls to make school meals free</a> for all students.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation U.S. asked four school nutrition experts what the break from daily in-person learning may change about school lunch.</em></p>
<h2>1. Cafeterias with more space, less noise</h2>
<p><strong><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hsGKoXYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Christine Caruso</a>, Assistant Professor of Public Health, University of Saint Joseph</strong>: Even prior to the pandemic, staff and students were concerned about <a href="https://doi.org/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.30.1.0101">crowding and noise levels</a> in cafeterias, according to research my colleague and I conducted on <a href="https://foodcorps.org/case-studies/">school meal programs</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html">Now it’s clear that crowding</a> and <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/13/1001696/loud-talking-could-leave-coronavirus-in-the-air-for-up-to-14-minutes/">loud talking</a> are also serious COVID-19 risk factors.</p>
<p>As more children return to in-person learning, many school districts are <a href="https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/news/2020/10/23/how-are-cafeteria-s-operating-in-covid-19-">letting students eat in their classrooms</a>. Schools are also relying on <a href="https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/back-to-school/schools-reveal-plans-for-lunchtime-protocols-amid-covid-19-pandemic/2323699/">courtyards or outdoor tents</a> to create safer eating environments. </p>
<p>These measures are critical because the coronavirus spreads <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30514-2">through airborne droplets and aerosols</a>. </p>
<p>As a public health precaution, I believe that most schools need to redesign their cafeterias to provide more and varied spaces for students to spread out, rather than being tightly packed together, and muffle noise. In addition to using outdoor spaces and classrooms, students can also eat in hallways and other spaces as needed. </p>
<h2>2. Fewer families paying for meals</h2>
<p><strong>Michael Long, Assistant Professor of Prevention and Community Health, George Washington University:</strong> <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp/nslp-fact-sheet">Serving the 30 million</a> students who rely on school meals has required radical rule waivers and program changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes include adjusting meal requirements and allowing schools to provide free meals <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/news-item/usda-040120">to all students</a>. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13020670">my research team’s analysis</a> of government <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-nutrition-and-meal-cost-study">data</a> collected during the 2014-2015 school year regarding costs and nutrition, medium and large schools that offered everyone free lunch and other meals spent US$0.67 less per meal than similar-sized schools that certified students for free and reduced price lunch eligibility based on <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/income-eligibility-guidelines">household income</a>. Despite the lower costs – likely due to administrative savings – nutritional quality remained the same. </p>
<p>The pandemic has renewed and strengthened <a href="https://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/12.22.20-Universal-School-Meals-Sign-On-Letter.pdf">national</a> and <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB364">state-level calls to make school meals free across the board</a>. </p>
<p>However, this shift will not be possible without new rules and increased federal funding. Without it, when the COVID-19 waivers expire – currently scheduled for the fall of 2021 – many schools will return to the familiar experience of <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13020670">inadequate funding</a>, big administrative burdens and <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304102">lower participation</a> rates.</p>
<h2>3. Healthier, tastier meals</h2>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.fcs.uga.edu/people/bio/caree-cotwright">Caree Cotwright</a>, Assistant Professor of Foods and Nutrition, University of Georgia</strong>: Since the pandemic began, schools have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2020.09.018">modified their lunches</a> in numerous ways, introducing new delivery methods and meal packages to deter the spread of the coronavirus. </p>
<p>Schools need more federal funding and support to continue providing healthy meals to students to reduce <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db288.pdf">health disparities</a>. School lunch is more widely consumed by kids from <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1017/S136898002000259">low-income families and communities of color</a> than their counterparts.</p>
<p>When students return to school, many are eating lunch in their classroom or outside rather than in the cafeteria. In my assessment, eating in a learning atmosphere offers a unique opportunity to bolster nutrition education programs and encourage students to taste new entrees that may be packaged in unfamiliar ways. </p>
<p>For example, one school nutrition director in the Atlanta area described to me a program using online taste tests to make school lunches more appealing to students. To start, parents pick up a week’s worth of school meals, which can be quickly heated and served. Then, a group of students participate in a live Zoom session with a school chef who guides them through warming and assembling a simple school lunch meal, such as cheesy chicken tacos with salsa. Students taste and rate the recipe with the chef. Finally, the video, student comments and taste-test results are posted for other students to view before the recipe is added to the menu.</p>
<p>My research has shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/heq.2019.0113">making school meals more nutritious and delicious</a> requires engaging school nutrition directors, teachers, parents and students. These partnerships can encourage students to try new recipes and better understand how food and the environment are linked – which may result in <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1017/S1368980014002948">less food waste</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389647/original/file-20210315-15-1lrbknf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C2%2C1563%2C1041&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Child carries lunch in plastic bag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389647/original/file-20210315-15-1lrbknf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C2%2C1563%2C1041&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389647/original/file-20210315-15-1lrbknf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389647/original/file-20210315-15-1lrbknf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389647/original/file-20210315-15-1lrbknf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389647/original/file-20210315-15-1lrbknf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389647/original/file-20210315-15-1lrbknf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389647/original/file-20210315-15-1lrbknf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cafeteria workers have distributed breakfasts and lunches during the pandemic, even when school buildings are closed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/myah-abeloff-holds-a-packed-lunch-and-breakfast-as-the-news-photo/1213017507?adppopup=true">Lauren A. Little/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. More food justice efforts</h2>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.jenniferelainegaddis.com/">Jennifer Gaddis</a>, Assistant Professor of Civil Society & Community Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison:</strong> <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46681">Congress provided limited funding</a> in March 2020 to help reimburse school food providers for the <a href="https://schoolnutrition.org/news-publications/press-releases/2020/sna-survey-finds-school-meal-programs-financial-losses-mount/">financial losses</a> they experienced during school closures. But it wasn’t enough. </p>
<p>More than a quarter of districts <a href="https://schoolnutrition.org/news-publications/press-releases/2020/sna-survey-finds-school-meal-programs-financial-losses-mount/">surveyed</a> by the <a href="https://schoolnutrition.org/">School Nutrition Association</a>, a nonprofit trade group, said they had cut hours for school cafeteria workers during the pandemic in order to cut costs.</p>
<p>These workers – mostly <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.15779/Z38M341">women and people of color</a> – are far more likely to be in <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.15779/Z38M341">part-time, low-wage jobs</a> and far <a href="https://schoolnutrition.org/news/research/2020-Compensation-and-Benefits-Report/">less likely to belong to unions</a> than the teachers they work alongside. </p>
<p>Before the pandemic, a growing number of schools were employing cafeteria staff to cook nutritious <a href="https://wearescratchworks.org/">meals from scratch</a>, and implementing <a href="https://www.farmtoschool.org/about/what-is-farm-to-school">farm-to-school programs</a> and <a href="https://goodfoodpurchasing.org/program-overview/#_values">other practices</a> to improve jobs, local economies and the environment.</p>
<p>Due to <a href="https://schoolnutrition.org/news-publications/press-releases/2021/new-usda-data-fewer-meals-served-2B-loss-for-school-meal-programs/">fewer kids eating school meals during the pandemic</a> and the increased costs associated with COVID-19 safety protocols, these positive changes may stall, or even be reversed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300033/the-labor-of-lunch">My research suggests</a> these reforms are needed to <a href="https://foodcorps.org/cms/assets/uploads/2019/09/Reimagining-School-Cafeterias-Report.pdf">transform the school lunch experience</a> and maximize the <a href="https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/RF-FoodPolicyPaper_Final2.pdf">ability of school meals</a> to improve public health and contribute to a post-pandemic economic recovery.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155934/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Gaddis is affiliated with the National Farm to School Network as an advisory board member.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine C. Caruso is affiliated with the Hartford Food System and Hartford Decide$ as a board member. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Long received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to conduct research on school meal costs.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caree J. Cotwright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Students are spreading out when they eat and using more single-serve packaging. Future changes to school meals could be less visible.Jennifer Gaddis, Assistant Professor of Civil Society & Community Studies, University of Wisconsin-MadisonCaree J. Cotwright, Assistant Professor of Food and Nutrition, University of GeorgiaChristine C. Caruso, Assistant Professor of Public Health, University of Saint JosephMichael Long, Assistant Professor of Prevention and Community Health, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1511932021-02-08T13:37:55Z2021-02-08T13:37:55ZCorporate concentration in the US food system makes food more expensive and less accessible for many Americans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381811/original/file-20210201-23-sw9ipn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C0%2C2500%2C1654&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Volunteers prepare boxes at the Greater Boston Food Bank on Oct. 1, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/volunteers-quality-check-and-prepare-boxes-to-load-for-news-photo/1229827185?adppopup=true">Iaritza Menjivar, The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Agribusiness executives and government policymakers often praise the U.S. food system for producing <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/meat-industry-responds-the-meat-racket-msna270286">abundant and affordable food</a>. In fact, however, food costs are rising, and shoppers in many parts of the U.S. have limited access to fresh, healthy products. </p>
<p>This isn’t just an academic argument. Even before the current pandemic, millions of people in the U.S. went hungry. In 2019 the U.S. Department of Agriculture <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics/#householdtype">estimated</a> that <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics/">over 35 million people were “food insecure</a>,” meaning they did not have reliable access to affordable, nutritious food. Now <a href="https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-hunger-coronavirus-pandemic-4c7f1705c6d8ef5bac241e6cc8e331bb">food banks</a> are struggling to feed people who have lost jobs and income thanks to COVID-19. </p>
<p>As rural sociologists, we study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=V_pXnRUAAAAJ&hl=en">changes in food systems</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=X8JjxZEAAAAJ&hl=en">sustainability</a>. We’ve closely followed corporate consolidation of food production, processing and distribution in the U.S. over the past 40 years. In our view, this process is making food less available or affordable for many Americans. </p>
<h2>Fewer, larger companies</h2>
<p>Consolidation has placed key decisions about our nation’s food system in the hands of a few large companies, giving them <a href="http://www.ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/Concentration_FullReport.pdf">outsized influence</a> to lobby policymakers, direct food and industry research and influence media coverage. These corporations also have enormous power to make decisions about what food is produced how, where and by whom, and who gets to eat it. We’ve tracked this trend <a href="https://www.globalagriculture.org/transformation-of-our-food-systems/book/updates/howard-hendrickson.html">across the globe</a>.</p>
<p>It began in the 1980s with mergers and acquisitions that left a few large firms <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/concentration-and-power-in-the-food-system-9781472581112/">dominating nearly every step of the food chain</a>. Among the largest are retailer <a href="https://corporate.walmart.com">Walmart</a>, food processor <a href="https://www.nestle.com/aboutus/overview">Nestlé</a> and seed/chemical firm <a href="https://www.bayer.com/en/crop-science/crop-science-division">Bayer</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382364/original/file-20210203-17-1lokhn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graphic showing consolidation in the global seed industry" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382364/original/file-20210203-17-1lokhn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382364/original/file-20210203-17-1lokhn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382364/original/file-20210203-17-1lokhn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382364/original/file-20210203-17-1lokhn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382364/original/file-20210203-17-1lokhn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382364/original/file-20210203-17-1lokhn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382364/original/file-20210203-17-1lokhn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Between 1996 and 2013 Monsanto acquired more than 70 seed companies, before the firm was itself acquired by competing seed/chemical firm Bayer in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philip Howard</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some corporate leaders have abused their power – for example, by allying with their few competitors to fix prices. In 2020 Christopher Lischewski, the former president and CEO of Bumblebee Foods, was convicted of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/16/business/bumble-bee-tuna-price-fixing.html">conspiracy to fix prices of canned tuna</a>. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison and fined US$100,000. </p>
<p>In the same year, chicken processor <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/pilgrim-s-pride-reaches-plea-agreement-with-justice-department-on-chicken-price-fixing-allegations-11602649655">Pilgrim’s Pride</a> pleaded guilty to price-fixing charges and was fined $110.5 million. Meatpacking company <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/antitrust/jbs-settlement-of-pork-price-fixing-suit-is-worth-24-5-million">JBS</a> settled a $24.5 million pork price-fixing lawsuit, and farmers won a class action settlement against peanut-shelling companies <a href="https://thecounter.org/price-fixing-peanut-farmers-lawsuit-georgia-antitrust-adm/">Olam and Birdsong</a>. </p>
<p>Industry consolidation is hard to track. Many subsidiary firms often are <a href="https://philhoward.net/2020/09/24/organic-processing-industry-structure-2020/">controlled by one parent corporation</a> and engage in “contract packing,” in which a single processing plant produces identical foods that are then sold under dozens of different brands – including labels that compete directly against each other.</p>
<p>Recalls ordered in response to food-borne disease outbreaks have revealed the broad scope of contracting relationships. Shutdowns at meatpacking plants due to COVID-19 infections among workers have shown how much of the U.S. food supply flows through <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/foodnews/13-us-meat-plants-are-down-25percent-of-pork-and-10percent-of-beef/ar-BB1396Ys">a small number of facilities</a>.</p>
<p>With consolidation, large supermarket chains have closed many <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10106049.2010.510583">urban</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2016.1145006">rural</a> stores. This process has left numerous communities with limited food selections and high prices – especially neighborhoods with many <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.08.005">low-income</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302113">Black or Latino</a> households.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y0dCgGGdSCU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In 2006, the Community Grocery Store in the small town of Walsh, Colorado, avoided going out of business by selling stock to residents. The store is still in business in 2021.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Widespread hunger</h2>
<p>As unemployment has risen during the pandemic, so has the number of hungry Americans. <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/about-us">Feeding America</a>, a nationwide network of food banks, estimates that <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/research/coronavirus-hunger-research">up to 50 million people</a> – including 17 million children – may currently be experiencing food insecurity. Nationwide, demand at food banks <a href="https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020/12/10/unprecedented-need-san-antonio-food-bank-has-seen-30-increase-in-demand-since-onset-of-covid-19-pandemic/">grew by over 48%</a> during the first half of 2020. </p>
<p>Simultaneously, disruptions in food supply chains forced farmers to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-farmers-are-dumping-milk-down-the-drain-and-letting-produce-rot-in-fields-136567">dump milk down the drain</a>, leave produce rotting in fields and euthanize livestock that could not be processed at slaughterhouses. We <a href="https://farmactionalliance.org/concentrationreport/">estimate</a> that between March and May of 2020, farmers disposed of somewhere between 300,000 and 800,000 hogs and 2 million chickens – more than 30,000 tons of meat. </p>
<p>What role does concentration play in this situation? Research shows that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jby026">retail concentration</a> correlates with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/agr.20058">higher prices for consumers</a>. It also shows that when food systems have fewer production and processing sites, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-015-0292-2">disruptions can have major impacts on supply</a>. </p>
<p>Consolidation makes it easier for any industry to maintain high prices. With few players, companies simply match each other’s price increases rather than competing with them. Concentration in the U.S. food system has raised the costs of everything from <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200530152228/http:/www.zwickcenter.uconn.edu/documents/issuepapers/ip6.pdf">breakfast cereal</a> and <a href="https://www.ceoafterlife.com/marketing/why-price-fixing-continues/">coffee</a> to <a href="https://www.justice.gov/atr/case-document/file/486606/download">beer</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374610/original/file-20201213-18-par9e7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graphs showing concentration in U.S. food markets" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374610/original/file-20201213-18-par9e7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374610/original/file-20201213-18-par9e7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374610/original/file-20201213-18-par9e7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374610/original/file-20201213-18-par9e7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374610/original/file-20201213-18-par9e7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374610/original/file-20201213-18-par9e7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374610/original/file-20201213-18-par9e7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The combined share of sales for the top four firms (CR4) for selected U.S. commodities, food processing/manufacturing and distribution/retail channels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://farmactionalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FFAAConcentrationUS.pdf">Family Farm Action Alliance</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the pandemic roiled the nation’s food system through 2020, consumer food costs <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings.aspx">rose by 3.4%</a>, compared to 0.4% in 2018 and 0.9% in 2019. We expect retail prices to remain high because they are “<a href="https://nationalaglawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/crs/R41224.pdf">sticky</a>,” with a tendency to increase rapidly but to decline more slowly and only partially.</p>
<p>We also believe there could be further supply disruptions. A few months into the pandemic, meat shelves in some U.S. stores sat empty, while some of the nation’s largest processors were <a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-booker-open-investigation-into-meatpackers-manipulation-of-covid-19-crisis-to-raise-prices-and-exploit-workers">exporting record amounts of meat to China</a>. U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., cited this imbalance as evidence of the need to crack down on what they called “<a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-booker-release-information-from-their-investigation-into-giant-meatpackers-exploiting-workers-and-consumers-during-covid-19">monopolistic practices</a>” by Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS and Smithfield, which dominate the U.S. meatpacking industry. </p>
<p>Tyson Foods <a href="https://thefeed.blog/2020/07/21/sharing-our-commitment-to-team-member-safety-with-elected-officials-leaders/">responded</a> that a large portion of its exports were “cuts of meat or portions of the animal that are not desired by” Americans. Store shelves are no longer empty for most cuts of meat, but processing plants remain <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2020/12/29/beef-market-still-feeling-the-effects-of-covid-19/">overbooked</a>, with many scheduling well into 2021.</p>
<h2>Toward a more equitable food system</h2>
<p>In our view, a resilient food system that feeds everyone can be achieved only through a more <a href="http://www.ipes-food.org/_img/upload/files/Concentration_FullReport.pdf">equitable distribution of power</a>. This in turn will require action in areas ranging from contract law and antitrust policy to workers’ rights and economic development. Farmers, workers, elected officials and communities will have to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-020-10092-y">work together</a> to fashion alternatives and change policies.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1354861566777294853"}"></div></p>
<p>The goal should be to produce more locally sourced food with shorter and less-centralized supply chains. Detroit offers an example. Over the past <a href="https://tostadamagazine.com/2018/02/28/history-in-photos-detroits-farm-a-lot-program-set-the-stage-for-urban-gardening-movement/">50 years</a>, food producers there have established <a href="https://visitdetroit.com/urban-farming-detroit/">more than 1,900 urban farms and gardens</a>. A planned <a href="https://detroitpeoplesfoodcoop.com/about-us/">community-owned food co-op</a> will serve the city’s North End, whose residents are predominantly low- and moderate-income and African American. </p>
<p>The federal government can help by <a href="https://www.rma.usda.gov/en/Policy-and-Procedure/Insurance-Plans/Whole-Farm-Revenue-Protection">adapting farm support programs</a> to target farms and businesses that <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/grants">serve local and regional markets</a>. State and federal incentives can build community- or cooperative-owned farms and processing and distribution businesses. Ventures like these could provide economic development opportunities while <a href="https://planning.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/Baltimore%20City%20Food%20Resilience.pdf">making the food system more resilient</a>. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>In our view, the best solutions will come from listening to and working with the people most affected: sustainable farmers, farm and food service workers, entrepreneurs and cooperators – and ultimately, the people whom they feed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip H. Howard is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, and a member of the Rural Sociological Society. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Agriculture. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Hendrickson is a member of the Rural Sociological Society, Agriculture Food and Human Values Society, and serves on the North Central Region SARE Administrative Council. She has received funding from USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA's Sustainable Agriculture and Research Program and various foundations. </span></em></p>Food production in the US is heavily concentrated in the hands of a small number of large agribusiness companies. That’s been good for shareholders, but not for consumers.Philip H. Howard, Associate Professor of Community Sustainability, Michigan State UniversityMary Hendrickson, Associate Professor of Rural Sociology, University of Missouri-ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1518212021-01-11T13:13:18Z2021-01-11T13:13:18Z18 million US children are at risk of hunger: How is the problem being addressed and what more can be done?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/376213/original/file-20201221-21-596juh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=138%2C1169%2C4055%2C2823&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Despite help from the government and charities, the number of food-insecure kids is rising.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-and-children-wearing-protective-face-masks-carry-food-news-photo/1209343192"> NurPhoto/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The economic crisis brought about by the coronavirus pandemic has increased the number of <a href="https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/54-million-people-america-face-food-insecurity-during-pandemic-it-could-have-dire-consequences-their">Americans who can’t always get enough to eat</a>, including children. The Conversation U.S. asked four experts to explain how common child hunger is and what’s being done to address it.</em></p>
<h2>1. How big a problem is child hunger in the US?</h2>
<p><strong><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AfhawtoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Heather Eicher-Miller</a>, associate professor of nutrition science at Purdue University:</strong> <a href="https://doi.org/10.17226/11578">Hunger has two very different meanings</a>. It can describe that uncomfortable feeling you get after not eating in a while. It’s also a long-term physical state.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375973/original/file-20201218-13-59dqpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo of a woman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375973/original/file-20201218-13-59dqpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375973/original/file-20201218-13-59dqpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375973/original/file-20201218-13-59dqpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375973/original/file-20201218-13-59dqpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375973/original/file-20201218-13-59dqpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375973/original/file-20201218-13-59dqpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375973/original/file-20201218-13-59dqpg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Heather Eicher-Miller.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.purdue.edu/hhs/nutr/directory/faculty/eicher-miller_heather.html">Purdue University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People who experience long-term hunger aren’t just uncomfortable. They can feel weakness or pain and run an elevated risk of illnesses, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2019-0397">asthma</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2009.27886">iron-deficiency anemia</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.111.142059">poor bone health</a>.</p>
<p>Hunger can of course arise when someone doesn’t eat enough, but it’s also a result of <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/definitions-of-food-security.aspx">food insecurity</a> – what happens when you lack the money or other means of accessing enough of the right kinds or amounts of food.</p>
<p>Whereas hunger is a physical condition, food insecurity is an economic and social situation. </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=KzTH1ZEAAAAJ&hl=en">David Himmelgreen</a>, professor of anthropology at the University of South Florida:</strong> Food insecurity and child hunger have both skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were an estimated <a href="https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/76390399?faodatalab=2020-12-15-1">50 million food-insecure Americans</a> by the end of 2020, up sharply from <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx">35 million in 2019</a>, the last year for which official data is available.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375982/original/file-20201218-15-df6u1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo of a man" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375982/original/file-20201218-15-df6u1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375982/original/file-20201218-15-df6u1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375982/original/file-20201218-15-df6u1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375982/original/file-20201218-15-df6u1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375982/original/file-20201218-15-df6u1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375982/original/file-20201218-15-df6u1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375982/original/file-20201218-15-df6u1p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Himmelgreen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.usf.edu/engagement/faculty/feature-stories/dr-david-dimmelgreen-research.aspx">University of South Florida</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Feeding America, the nation’s largest anti-hunger organization, estimated in 2019 that there were 12.5 million U.S. children – <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/2017-map-the-meal-gap-child-food-insecurity_0.pdf">1 in 6</a> – at risk of hunger. With growth in the number of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf">American workers unemployed</a> and <a href="https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-internal/coronavirus-forecasting-poverty-estimates">children living in poverty</a>, a team of researchers determined in July 2020 that 18 million children – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuaa069">1 in 4</a> – were experiencing food insecurity at least sometimes, a few months into the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hAc_w0MAAAAJ&hl=en">Kecia Johnson</a>, assistant professor of sociology at Mississippi State University:</strong> Children who <a href="https://www.charities.org/child-hunger">experience hunger</a> are more likely to be sick, to recuperate from illness more slowly and to be hospitalized more frequently.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375983/original/file-20201218-15-12kc7lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo of a woman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375983/original/file-20201218-15-12kc7lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375983/original/file-20201218-15-12kc7lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375983/original/file-20201218-15-12kc7lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375983/original/file-20201218-15-12kc7lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375983/original/file-20201218-15-12kc7lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375983/original/file-20201218-15-12kc7lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375983/original/file-20201218-15-12kc7lo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kecia Johnson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.sociology.msstate.edu/people/kecia-johnson/">Mississippi State University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among other things, being food insecure increases the potential for <a href="https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/social-determinants-health/interventions-resources/food-insecurity">obesity, heart disease and diabetes</a>, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1111%2Fjspn.12177">including for children</a>. And food-insecure children are at least twice as likely as other kids to have a variety of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0645">health problems</a>, such as anemia, asthma and anxiety.</p>
<p>Food-insecure kids can also have <a href="https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/social-determinants-health/interventions-resources/food-insecurity">more trouble at school</a> than other children and become more likely to experience social isolation. </p>
<h2>2. What’s being done about the problem?</h2>
<p><strong><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6mrjiJYAAAAJ&hl=en">Diana Cuy Castellanos</a>, assistant professor of dietetics and nutrition at the University of Dayton:</strong> Some <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/usda-foods">15 federal programs</a> assist Americans who need help getting enough nutritious food to eat. The programs cover different populations including the elderly, people with low incomes, infants and children, and Native American communities, as well as areas where there is need for emergency relief due to disasters.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375978/original/file-20201218-23-zyshug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo of a woman" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375978/original/file-20201218-23-zyshug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375978/original/file-20201218-23-zyshug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375978/original/file-20201218-23-zyshug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375978/original/file-20201218-23-zyshug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375978/original/file-20201218-23-zyshug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375978/original/file-20201218-23-zyshug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375978/original/file-20201218-23-zyshug.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Diana Cuy Castellanos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://udayton.edu/directory/education/hss/cuy_castellanos.php">University of Dayton</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The largest is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/snap-benefits-cost-a-total-of-85-6b-in-the-2020-fiscal-year-amid-heightened-us-poverty-and-unemployment-148077">Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program</a>, known more commonly as SNAP. It provides assistance for the purchase of food based on income and cost US$85.6 billion in the latest fiscal year. Following the passage of a bipartisan relief package in December, most families of four can currently get <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/temporary-increase-maximum-allotments-due-covid-19-revised-12282020">$782 in monthly assistance</a> through SNAP.</p>
<p>Many people still call these benefits “food stamps,” but now, instead of receiving vouchers to purchase food, people receive a card that looks like a credit card with their food allowance on it.</p>
<p>The government also runs the <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/wic-program/">Women, Infants and Children</a> program, which provides nutritional aid for low-income pregnant women, breastfeeding women and women with at least one child age 5 or under. In addition, there are the School Breakfast and Lunch programs as well as the <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/sfsp/summer-food-service-program">Summer Food Service Program</a>, which funds free healthy meals and snacks to children and teens in low-income areas when school is not in session.</p>
<p>Many of these programs target specific segments of the population, such as children and the elderly. All have something in common: They are designed to help low-income families afford food so as to free up more of their limited income on other needs, such as housing and transportation.</p>
<p><iframe id="ei2YW" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ei2YW/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Himmelgreen:</strong> While federal nutrition programs have helped reduce the severity of food insecurity and child hunger, only a limited number of Americans who don’t get enough to eat can take advantage of them. To get SNAP in Florida, for example, people may not have more than a total of either $2,001 or $3,001 – depending on their age and disabilities – in their savings and checking accounts. Other states have similar but different restrictions, making it hard to estimate the number of Americans who need help but can’t get it. Hence, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/race-and-ethnicity-hunger-coronavirus-pandemic-4c7f1705c6d8ef5bac241e6cc8e331bb">millions more people than ever</a> are relying on drive-through food pantries during the pandemic.</p>
<p><strong>Johnson:</strong> There are some 60,000 food pantries, meal programs and food banks, according to <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/press-room/soaring-demand-plummeting-supply">Feeding America</a>, serving about 40 million people yearly. Feeding America and its affiliated food banks and pantries also run <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-can-take-a-village-to-feed-hungry-kids-in-schools-110862">food pantries in schools</a> and <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/our-work/hunger-relief-programs/backpack-program">backpack programs</a>, which provide students with easily prepared foods, like boxed macaroni and cheese and canned beans, to take home, throughout the country. </p>
<p>For example, an elementary school in <a href="https://feedingthefuturems.wixsite.com/ffms">Holmes County, Mississippi</a>, has supplied participating families with food and other supplies since 2019.</p>
<p><strong>Eicher-Miller:</strong> Nutrition education is another way to address food insecurity and help reduce the number of children who go hungry. For example, the federal government offers nutrition education to individuals and families who receive SNAP benefits through the <a href="https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/">Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education program</a>, or SNAP-Ed. It provides comprehensive nutrition education regarding how to get the most nutrition per food dollar to many of the people who get SNAP benefits and may be having trouble serving their families healthy meals on a limited budget.</p>
<p>The government supports SNAP-Ed in locations like food pantries, community centers and food assistance offices. Its practical budgeting advice, <a href="https://civileats.com/2020/10/20/nutrition-education-is-helping-low-income-families-eat-healthier/">cooking classes</a> and nutrition information make families with children <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1093/nutrit/nuz013">less likely to experience food insecurity</a>, according to a study by my team. When people get the hang of buying the healthiest foods they can on a tight budget, their kids are less likely to go hungry.</p>
<p>I think of nutrition education as a gift that keeps giving in the sense that once someone has the knowledge they can keep using it to stay food secure into the future.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375988/original/file-20201218-13-abb0jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C449%2C4872%2C3158&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A small child holds a big umbrella while their mom in a mask holds a box that says 'vegetables.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375988/original/file-20201218-13-abb0jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C449%2C4872%2C3158&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375988/original/file-20201218-13-abb0jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375988/original/file-20201218-13-abb0jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375988/original/file-20201218-13-abb0jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375988/original/file-20201218-13-abb0jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375988/original/file-20201218-13-abb0jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375988/original/file-20201218-13-abb0jm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demand for food donations is on the rise.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-carry-food-donated-by-volunteers-from-the-baltimore-news-photo/1229967484">Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. What are some of the more promising innovations?</h2>
<p><strong>Cuy Castellanos:</strong> Food insecurity is a complex problem for many reasons, including the limited access millions of people have to the <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/vegetables-and-fruits/">fresh fruits and vegetables everyone should eat</a>.</p>
<p>That’s why I’m excited to see people starting to grow their own food in low-income communities with <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45014/30940_err140.pdf">few grocery stores or opportunities to buy produce</a>, from <a href="https://www.calwellness.org/stories/transforming-food-deserts-a-food-justice-tour-of-south-los-angeles/">Los Angeles</a> to <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/building-oasis-philadelphia-food-desert">Philadelphia</a>. <a href="https://www.missionofmary.org/">Nonprofits</a> and families are growing food on their own property or are using vacant lots or land on school or church grounds.</p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.homefull.org/homefull-solutions/urban-agriculture-2/">groups</a> such as <a href="https://www.homefull.org/2010/05/gettysburg-gateway-micro-farm/">Homefull</a> and <a href="https://www.missionofmary.org">Mission of Mary Farms</a> in Dayton, Ohio, have even begun to build greenhouses to extend the growing season and producing root vegetables and leafy greens as well as raising chickens.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p><strong>Johnson:</strong> A new community garden is also making a difference in the small majority-Black town of <a href="http://extension.msstate.edu/news/feature-photo/2019/4-h-club-members-pick-produce-community-garden">Maben in rural Mississippi</a>, where there’s nowhere to buy vegetables. Starting in 2019, local leaders approved the conversion of a former school athletic field into a community garden. Once volunteers from a farmers cooperative had cleared and plowed the field, other volunteers planted and harvested crops of tomatoes, purple hull peas, okra and watermelons. The gardeners distributed this first wave of produce primarily to elderly people in Maben who used to have family gardens and give away their own homegrown food in years past.</p>
<p><strong>Himmelgreen:</strong> Many innovative programs across the country are aiming to reduce food insecurity and improve the health of low-income Americans. </p>
<p>At “<a href="https://www.endhungerinamerica.org/getting-started/client-choice-food-pantries/">client food choice</a>” food pantries, clients don’t just pick up boxes of free, nutritious items. Instead, they get to choose the foods they want and get <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-app-that-nudges-people-to-eat-their-veggies-only-works-when-its-introduced-with-a-human-touch-106228">recipes and other kinds of nutrition education</a>. There are also <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-hospital-that-prescribes-free-nutritious-food-to-families-who-need-more-than-medical-care-151457">food prescription programs</a> based in hospitals and medical clinics, where patients are screened for food insecurity and, if eligible, enrolled in SNAP and given help connecting with food pantries either on site or nearby.</p>
<p>A growing number of nonprofits also refer people to school-based food pantries, which operate in <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-can-take-a-village-to-feed-hungry-kids-in-schools-110862">K-12 public schools</a> and on <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandemic-threatens-food-security-for-many-college-students-146823">college campuses</a> and the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1080%2F21551197.2015.1038463">meals-on-wheels programs</a> that assist people who are homebound.</p>
<p>I believe these programs need to be scaled up or replicated whenever possible in areas where there is a high level of food insecurity and child hunger but a lack of nonprofit help available.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Eicher-Miller receives or has received funding for work related to this article from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Federal Office of Rural Health, and Purdue University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Himmelgreen has worked with Feeding Tampa Bay since 2015 and currently serves on its board. He has conducted funded research and evaluations on topics ranging from adolescent and older adult food insecurity and health to mobile food pantry program services.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diana Cuy Castellanos receives funding from the University of Dayton to evaluate the impact of Mission of Mary Farm and Homefull gardens on local residents dietary intake. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kecia Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An estimated 1 in 4 US children have trouble getting enough to eat at least sometimes. We asked four scholars for their insights..Heather Eicher-Miller, Associate Professor of Nutrition Science, Purdue UniversityDavid Himmelgreen, Professor of Anthropology, University of South FloridaDiana Cuy Castellanos, Assistant Professor of Dietetics and Nutrition, University of DaytonKecia Johnson, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Mississippi State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1339692020-03-19T11:47:21Z2020-03-19T11:47:21ZCoronavirus: school closures mean an increased risk of hunger for families around the world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321371/original/file-20200318-1913-1iuzmr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C8%2C5973%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/chair-table-class-room-black-board-1334329124">Yupa Watchanakit/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Schools are closing across the world. At the time of writing, <a href="https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-emergencies/coronavirus-school-closures">UNESCO report</a> that 107 countries have implemented nationwide closure, affecting 861.7 million children. There are localised closures in a further 12 countries. These numbers have been increasing significantly each day. </p>
<p>On each school day, half of the world’s school students in low- and middle-income countries eat a free or subsidised meal. For these <a href="https://www.wfp.org/publications/impact-school-feeding-programmes">310 million children</a> and their families, school meals are a lifeline, providing nutritious food that children would not get at home. </p>
<p>In the face of unprecedented and unanticipated school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s vital to ensure that the food needs of school children continue to be met. If not, their human right to food will be jeopardised.</p>
<h2>Meeting crucial needs</h2>
<p>We know that school meals play an important role in meeting children’s food needs. In India, nearly 100 million children receive a free lunch every school day. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304387809000169">These lunches</a> reduce protein deficiency by 100%, calorie deficiency by 30% and iron deficiency by 10%. In the US, students consuming a school lunch under the National School Lunch Program get <a href="https://jandonline.org/article/S0002-8223(08)02061-0/fulltext#sec3.1">more than one third of their daily calories</a> from food and drink provided at school. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321375/original/file-20200318-1977-1cwnnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321375/original/file-20200318-1977-1cwnnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321375/original/file-20200318-1977-1cwnnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321375/original/file-20200318-1977-1cwnnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321375/original/file-20200318-1977-1cwnnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321375/original/file-20200318-1977-1cwnnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321375/original/file-20200318-1977-1cwnnei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">School meals provide children with vital nutrition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/primary-school-kids-eat-lunch-cafeteria-432895708">Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>School meals can have many other benefits. Meals at school can <a href="http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099080042112/DID_School_Feeding.pdf">reduce household food expenditure</a>, in turn alleviating poverty. School meals can act as safety nets, maintaining children’s food consumption during times of crisis <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/674097">such as drought</a>. </p>
<p>We also know that when schools are closed for long periods such as during the holidays, households struggle. Children and their families may <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10796120600879582?journalCode=cjcp20">eat less and consume less nutritious food</a> when schools are closed, a phenomenon known as holiday hunger. The absence of school meals during the holidays has also been found to contribute to <a href="https://www.ewa.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/summer_learning_gap-2.pdf">reduced academic performance</a>. </p>
<p>In the UK, holiday hunger has become increasingly prevalent. It has been estimated that <a href="https://feedingbritain.org/donations/holiday-hunger/">3 million children</a> are at risk of going hungry in the school holidays. </p>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/274897">own research</a> in the state of Rajasthan in India, I found increased food insecurity and decreased dietary diversity in the summer holidays and a widespread desire for school meals to continue out of term-time. </p>
<p>Some governments are aware of this and continue school feeding programmes in school holidays. In the US, the <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/sfsp/summer-food-service-program">Summer Food Service Program</a> continues to supply school meals to children in the summer, although coverage is far from universal. In India, the school lunch continues in the summer in areas experiencing drought. In the UK, charitable organisations attempt to fill the void left in the school holidays. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/for-some-kids-school-holidays-mean-hunger-and-isolation-73574">For some kids school holidays mean hunger and isolation</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Urgent requirements</h2>
<p>Based on what we know about holiday hunger, we can expect that households across the world will struggle during the school closures which have resulted from the coronavirus pandemic. These closures may well extend beyond the length of a typical school break. The situation is likely to be exacerbated by the wider economic impacts of the pandemic, including on employment. Situations like the current pandemic, when schools are closed, are also the times when school feeding programmes are the most needed.</p>
<p>The loss of school meals will be felt most by the neediest children and families. The potential negative impacts of school closures on the poorest children <a href="https://theconversation.com/americas-poorest-children-wont-get-nutritious-meals-with-school-cafeterias-closed-due-to-the-coronavirus-133341">has already been noted in the US</a>, but will also be the case across the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321377/original/file-20200318-1909-hs7umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321377/original/file-20200318-1909-hs7umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321377/original/file-20200318-1909-hs7umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321377/original/file-20200318-1909-hs7umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321377/original/file-20200318-1909-hs7umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321377/original/file-20200318-1909-hs7umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321377/original/file-20200318-1909-hs7umx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Schools are closed across Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/pietrasanta-luccaitaly-mar-11-2020-coronavirus-1670427241">federico neri/Shutterstock</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>Some governments have already recognised the need to address the gaps in food provisioning left in the absence of school meals. In India, the state government of Bihar has <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/covid-19-bihar-govt-orders-closure-of-all-schools-colleges-coaching-institutes-till-march-31/story-ePi4V6EdoFYUBuzlPOPWuO.html">announced</a> the intention to transfer the cash value of school lunches to families (notably a very small sum). </p>
<p>In Kerala, rations <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/kerala-coronavirus-midday-meals-gokdirect_in_5e6b18fbc5b6dda30fc65c6d">have been</a> delivered to the homes of young children who attend anganwadis (pre-school centres). Clearly, further initiatives are needed to ensure the nearly 100 million children that rely on India’s <a href="http://mdm.nic.in/mdm_website/">Midday Meal Scheme</a> are protected from hunger and malnutrition during school closures. </p>
<p>In some US states, school meals are being provided under an <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/cn/child-nutrition-program-waiver-request-guidance-and-protocol-revised">extension of the Summer Lunch Program</a>. Moreover, the US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has recently unveiled a <a href="https://edlabor.house.gov/imo/media/doc/MEALS%20Act%20Bill%20Text.pdf">Maintaining Essential Access to Lunch for Students (MEALS) Act</a>, which would enable further provision of lunches during school closures.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1237825746858577923"}"></div></p>
<p>In the UK, charities and academics have <a href="https://www.sustainweb.org/news/mar20_school_meals_school_closures/">called for</a> cash transfers to be given to individuals or households during this crisis. Schools and charities have already started preparing to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51944426">supply school meals or food packages</a> and the government has announced funding and vouchers for those receiving free school meals. </p>
<p>Many governments have taken the decision to close schools, a necessary response to COVID-19. They will, however, <a href="https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-emergencies/coronavirus-school-closures/consequences">have adverse consequences</a>. To ensure that school closures do not leave school children and their families hungry, urgent action by governments and international organisations is required. School lunches, and the vital role they play in guaranteeing that children are well fed and nourished, must be part of the conversation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lana Whittaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many households struggle when schools are closed.Lana Whittaker, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Liverpool School of Tropical MedicineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1257672019-11-08T12:46:42Z2019-11-08T12:46:42ZMillions of malnourished children in West and Central Africa have been overlooked by UN estimates – new data<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300854/original/file-20191108-194675-1720azs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C32%2C5463%2C3604&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children who experience multiple forms of malnutrition are at the greatest risk of early death. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kenya-rusinga-island-utajo-village-february-1180465816?src=00d32a6e-53ca-47cb-af52-55509199f994-1-9">JLwarehouse/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four years ago the United Nations (UN) members states created a list of <a href="https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs">international development targets</a>, known as the Sustainable Development Goals. These included 17 urgent calls for action aimed at improving the lives of people around the world. Tackling poverty and food insecurity were placed at the top of the list.</p>
<p>One region where <a href="https://globalnutritionreport.org/reports/global-nutrition-report-2018/">hunger</a> and <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/30418/9781464813306.pdf">poverty</a> continue to blight the lives of millions, affecting the survival and development of children in particular, is in West and Central Africa.</p>
<p>For the UN to develop effective policies for reducing persistent poverty and hunger, they first needed a clear picture of the scale of the crisis, – including how many children are still affected by malnutrition. <a href="https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FP00346X%2F1">Our project</a> explored whether the measures used in UN reports provide an accurate picture of the full scale of malnutrition, and progress made, in West and Central Africa. </p>
<p>Our results suggest that the numbers currently used to estimate malnutrition underplay the true extent of the problem. We believe current indicators underestimate the overall extent of malnutrition among young children in the region by at least 6m children.</p>
<h2>Assessment challenges</h2>
<p>Our analysis used data on young children under five years old collected by USAID’s <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/">Demographic and Health Survey</a> and UNICEF’s <a href="https://mics.unicef.org/about">Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys</a>. We looked at data from the 18 countries in the West and Central Africa.</p>
<p>The project produced the first estimates of the extent and number of children in the region experiencing any form of anthropometric failure – meaning their physical development was stunted due to poor nutrition. Children with anthropometric failure are either too short or too light for their age, or too light for their height. These forms of malnutrition are known as stunting, underweight and wasting, respectively.</p>
<p>Children can experience each form of malnutrition, either on its own or in combination. Children experiencing two or more of these forms were classified as having multiple malnutrition. Our project was the first to produce detailed estimates of multiple malnutrition for countries in the region, and the region as a whole.</p>
<p>One reason why conventional estimates of child malnutrition understate the extent of the problem is <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82038720.pdf">because of the indicators</a> used. The Millennium Development Goals assessed progress until 2015 using data on the number and proportion of children who were underweight. </p>
<p>The Sustainable Development Goals are tracking progress until 2030. They’re looking at the number and proportion of children who experience stunting (their height was lower than expected for their age), and wasting (their weight for their height is less than expected). Stunting reflects chronic, longer-term malnutrition, while wasting is an indicator of more recent, acute malnutrition. Tracking progress over time using different indicators can be confusing – especially when they tell quite different stories of extent and trends.</p>
<p>Our study used a measure of overall malnutrition called the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4419-1788-1_6">Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure</a> (CIAF). This identifies children who experience any form of malnutrition – whether it’s stunting, wasting, being underweight, or any combination of these. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300858/original/file-20191108-194675-vff247.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300858/original/file-20191108-194675-vff247.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300858/original/file-20191108-194675-vff247.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300858/original/file-20191108-194675-vff247.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300858/original/file-20191108-194675-vff247.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300858/original/file-20191108-194675-vff247.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300858/original/file-20191108-194675-vff247.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Doctor measuring a child to see if they’re malnourished.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medical_staff_examine_a_child_for_signs_of_malnourishment_in_DRC_(7610291856).jpg">Russell Watkins/Department for International Development/ Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The CIAF provides more accurate estimates of what proportion of a nation’s young children suffer from malnutrition because it can identify children suffering with any form of malnutrition. Other indicators, like those used in UN reports, do not do this.</p>
<p>For example, the Millennium Development Goals only used being underweight as a indicator of malnutrition. This means it missed stunted children who might not be underweight. Children who experience wasting but aren’t stunted (and vice versa) might also not be underweight. This means they’re also overlooked. </p>
<p>Similarly, the Sustainable Development Goals currently report the percentage of stunted children and wasted children separately. This means that we still lack estimates of the number of children who experience either stunting, wasting or who are underweight, or a combination of these measures. The CIAF overcomes this problem.</p>
<p>Monitoring children who suffer from multiple malnutrition is also important as different forms of malnutrition have different mortality risks. While the CIAF shows the true extent of overall undernutrition, the indicator of multiple malnutrition shows how many children experience multiple anthropometric failures, who are at greatest risk of an early death.</p>
<h2>The scale of multiple malnutrition</h2>
<p>Our study shows that <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12187-019-09671-1">estimates of child malnutrition vary considerably</a> depending on the indicator used. At the regional level in 2010, there were around 15.5m underweight children (23%). Around 26.4m children experienced stunting (38%), and 8.2m children experienced wasting (12%). However, when we used the CIAF, we found nearly half (48%) of the region’s children under five (about 32.8m) were affected.</p>
<p>This shows that conventional estimates of malnutrition for the region effectively overlooked millions of malnourished children. As such, current UN estimates don’t fully reflect the extent of the problem in the region.</p>
<p>Though <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mcn.12516">other studies</a> have looked at multiple malnutrition, they may also be underestimating the extent of the problem. Many focus specifically on stunting and wasting, so they may neglect valuable information provided by underweight data. </p>
<p>These studies on multiple malnutrition have also only counted children experiencing both stunting and wasting, who are at greatest risk of poor health and death. Using a joint measure of stunting and wasting, we estimate that in 2010, around one in 25 children in West and Central Africa (4%, or 2.5m) were affected, suggesting that multiple malnutrition is relatively rare. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/97/4/896/4577150">previous studies</a> have also demonstrated that children who experience stunting and who are underweight, or who experience wasting and who are underweight, also have a greater risk of illness and early death compared to children who experience only a single failure. Our work provides evidence to support this.</p>
<p>By excluding data on underweight children from estimates (as the Sustainable Development Goals are doing), many vulnerable children will continue being overlooked. Using the CIAF to measure multiple malnutrition, we estimate that around one in five (22%, 9.2m) children under five in the region were affected by multiple malnutrition in 2010. We believe the extent of multiple malnutrition in children is more common than realised, which is something policy makers should be made aware of.</p>
<p>Our study also shows how the situation changed during the first decade of the new millennium. Using data for countries with multiple surveys, we show that between 2000 and 2010 progress in reducing child malnutrition in West and Central Africa wasn’t enough to outrun rapid population growth. By 2010 there were an additional 2.5m malnourished children in the region compared to five years previously. Prevalence rates also hadn’t fallen significantly.</p>
<p>Of the additional 2.5m malnourished children, more than half lived in rural areas. However, large urban population increases meant that urban areas contributed around a million children to the higher regional figures.</p>
<p>Policy makers need reliable data to develop antipoverty policies. Generating new information about the extent and pattern of malnutrition in some of the world’s poorest countries might spur governments and international agencies into action, providing the resources needed to make lasting change in some of the poorest countries on the planet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marco Pomati receives has received funding from UNICEF, ESRC, the British Council and EUROSTAT to research child poverty and/or child malnutrition. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shailen Nandy has received funding from UNICEF and the UK ESRC for research on child poverty and malnutrition in developing countries. </span></em></p>We found that current indicators underestimate nearly 6 million children suffering from malnutrition.Marco Pomati, Lecturer, Cardiff UniversityShailen Nandy, Reader in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1162162019-04-30T10:50:36Z2019-04-30T10:50:36ZFood poverty: agony of hunger the norm for many children in the UK<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271523/original/file-20190429-194612-bhxlq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children are growing up hungry across Britain. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Jedzura/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Back in the year 2000, as a newly qualified sociologist fresh out of my PhD, I decided to interview my grandparents. Now aged 87 and 84, they had lived through most of the 20th century. I asked them to tell me about the most dramatic changes that they had either witnessed or experienced through their lifetime. Without a moment of hesitation, and without pausing to confer with one another over what might be included, they both answered me with one word: “food!” </p>
<p>As working-class children growing up in the north of England in decades of economic depression, and having lived through the “hungry thirties”, they remembered what it was like to experience food poverty. The experience of being hungry as children and as young adults had left an indelible mark on their social memories and life attitudes. They went on to tell me that they both held that the most significant invention of the 20th century was the modern supermarket. They found it remarkable to be living though their old age at a time when such a great variety of food was readily available and affordable to them. </p>
<p>I was immediately reminded of a phrase that I had come across in my work, but up until that point had not fully attended to its significance, namely, that “bodies remember”. There is something about the agony of the bodily experience of deprivation that, when suffered, remains to haunt a person for the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>In recent months I’ve regularly recalled this incident while working with <a href="https://foodfoundation.org.uk/">The Food Foundation</a>, an independent think tank that tackles the growing challenges facing the UK’s food system, on the analysis of submissions to the final report of the <a href="https://foodfoundation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Childrens-Future-Food-Inquiry-report.pdf">Children’s Future Food Inquiry</a>. This features data gathered from interviews and group discussions with nearly 400 British children and young people aged between ten and 20-years-old who are currently experiencing food poverty. </p>
<p>Alongside their testimonies is evidence submitted from children’s centres, food banks, schools, health care professionals, academics, faith organisations, housing associations, community advice centres and holiday kitchens. On reading through all this, it has been made sickeningly clear to me that, in 2019, parts of Britain are yet again immersed in experiences of social suffering that are akin to the “devil’s decade” of the 1930s.</p>
<h2>Going hungry</h2>
<p>One in three children – or 4.1m – are living in poverty in the UK. The charity UNICEF <a href="https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/IWP_2017_09.pdf">estimates</a> that 2.5m British children, or 19%, now live in food insecure households. This means that there are times when their family doesn’t have enough money to acquire enough food, or they cannot buy the full variety of foods needed for a healthy diet. In addition, 10% of these children are also classified as living in severe food insecurity (the European average is 4%) and as a result are set to experience adverse health outcomes. </p>
<p>The rates of hospital admissions due to rickets (a disease largely caused by severe malnutrition in the early stages of childhood) are at their <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2814%2960211-7/fulltext">highest for 50 years</a> There is also increasing evidence of childhood stunting – impaired growth and development resulting from poor nutrition. <a href="https://adc.bmj.com/content/101/5/422.long">A recent study</a> found that children living in some of the most economically deprived regions of England were on average more than a centimetre shorter in height by the age of ten years than those living in the most economically advantaged areas.</p>
<p>In schools where the majority of pupils are entitled to receive free school meals, teachers are reporting that they are regularly observing hungry children filling their pockets with any leftovers they can find so that they have something to eat for their evening meal. Outside term times, “holiday hunger” is now widespread and many are left relying on “free meals” offered by clubs and schemes run by local charities as their main source of food.</p>
<h2>Angry and bewildered</h2>
<p>The children profiled in the final report <a href="https://vimeo.com/330810166/4da12e4285">explain in unvarnished, matter-of-fact terms</a> what it’s like to experience life at school through the exhaustion of hunger pains and with the social stigma of being labelled as a claimant of “free school meals”. </p>
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<p>They bear testimony to the shock of being made to experience conditions that leave them mentally damaged, physically debilitated and with no possibility of escape. It’s particularly harrowing to learn of the dire state of contemporary Britain through the angry and bewildered voices of its children. However, perhaps more distressing still are the areas of the report that document some of the experiences of those left voiceless. </p>
<p>The inquiry also gathered evidence from some of those working among the <a href="https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/PR-2012-Undocumented_Migrant_Children.pdf">thousands</a> of extremely vulnerable refugee children who are entirely excluded from accessing free school meals because they are undocumented or have no access to public funds. These children are entirely reliant on charity. One child was left so hungry that he: “Was regularly eating plasterboard, foam-like materials from his pillow, stuffing from his coat and fibre from his socks and jumpers”.</p>
<p>The report asserts that “what we feed our children is a defining factor of our nation’s values”. On the evidence it presents, these values have to change, for those we are living by now have surely failed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116216/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iain Wilkinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>British children left angry and bewildered by food poverty.Iain Wilkinson, Professor of Sociology, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/831352017-09-05T23:44:52Z2017-09-05T23:44:52ZWhy your kids need a national school food program<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184587/original/file-20170904-9750-15e6i9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canada is one of very few industrialized countries not to have a national school food program. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Children who <a href="https://are.berkeley.edu/%7Emlanderson/pdf/school_lunch.pdf">eat nutritious lunches feel better and learn better</a>. The evidence is clear and consistent. So why, in a rich country like Canada, will so many children be sitting in their new classrooms feeling hungry this week? </p>
<p><a href="http://proof.utoronto.ca/resources/fact-sheets/#children">One in six Canadian children</a> lives in a household too poor to put nutritious food on the table. <a href="http://davidhammond.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2016-Fruit-Veg-Consumption-J-School-Hlth-Minaker-et-al.pdf">Fewer than one in 10 Canadian children</a> and youth are eating the amount of fruits and vegetables recommended for healthy development. Called food insecurity, insufficient access to affordable and nutritious foods is a problem that is on the rise across Canada. </p>
<p>Good nutrition impacts children’s health, well-being and learning, and if children are not adequately nourished during childhood, the impact can last a lifetime. Hunger in childhood has <a href="http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/383613">long-term adverse consequences for health</a>. </p>
<p>This is why I, and others, have been <a href="http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1308652-national-school-food-program-an-urgent-necessity">calling for a national school food program</a> to be <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/28/national-school-food-program-needed.html">established in Canada</a>. </p>
<h2>Healthy foods, better moods</h2>
<p>My own research reveals that school children experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity report <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980014001414">more mood problems and lower health-related quality of life</a> than children from food secure households. </p>
<p>In this research of over 5,800 Grade 5 children, mood problems were common even among children from households classed as marginally food insecure. Food insecurity was also associated with lower diet quality and higher body weight. This suggests a greater reliance on energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods when money for food is tight. </p>
<p>In a subsequent study, we found that lower diet quality, along with breakfast skipping and sugary drink consumption, were <a href="http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/12/11/14857">each associated with lower academic performance</a>, reinforcing the value of good nutrition to the health and learning of Canadian children. </p>
<h2>Universally available</h2>
<p>There is no better time to take action. According to a recent <a href="http://www.unicef.ca/en/unicef-report-card-14-child-well-being-sustainable-world">UNICEF report</a>, Canada ranks 37 out of 41 countries in providing access to nutritious food for children. Canada’s mediocre ranking in child well-being among other rich countries hasn’t improved over the past decade either. We are failing our children right now. And we will continue to fail them in the future if we don’t act soon, and fast.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184588/original/file-20170904-9717-rum2c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184588/original/file-20170904-9717-rum2c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184588/original/file-20170904-9717-rum2c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184588/original/file-20170904-9717-rum2c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184588/original/file-20170904-9717-rum2c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184588/original/file-20170904-9717-rum2c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184588/original/file-20170904-9717-rum2c3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the absence of a national lunch program, healthy foods are enjoyed only by those children whose parents have the available resources.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Action is needed to address many contributing factors to food insecurity, like low income, poverty and the increasing costs of healthy and nutritious foods. But the advantage of school food programs is that they are universally available to all children. They can support the development of healthy eating patterns for <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/12751/chapter/1">all students</a>, regardless of income. </p>
<p>Universal school food programs make sense because all children attend school, spending more of their waking hours in this environment than any other. Yet Canada is one of only a few industrialized countries <a href="http://dcjournal.ca/doi/10.3148/cjdpr-2016-037">without a national school food program</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, school food provision is left up to individual provinces and territories, meaning there are no federally mandated standards for foods served or sold in schools. This leads to <a href="http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/10.1139/apnm-2017-0125#.WaRu160ZNBz">inequitable access to nutritious foods during school hours</a> for students from across the country. </p>
<h2>The right thing to do</h2>
<p><a href="https://foodsecurecanada.org/sites/foodsecurecanada.org/files/coalition_for_healthy_school_food_0.pdf">The Coalition for Healthy School Food</a>, comprised of 30 organizations across Canada, is calling for an investment of $1 billion, phased in over five years, to establish a cost-shared Universal Healthy School Food Program. This will enable all students in Canada to have access to healthy meals at school every day. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184589/original/file-20170904-9729-131vsk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184589/original/file-20170904-9729-131vsk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184589/original/file-20170904-9729-131vsk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184589/original/file-20170904-9729-131vsk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184589/original/file-20170904-9729-131vsk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184589/original/file-20170904-9729-131vsk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184589/original/file-20170904-9729-131vsk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children eating a healthy school meal in Milan, Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While this may seem like a lot of money, the return on investment for school food programs is an impressive <a href="http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/resources/wfp281517.pdf">$3 to $10 for every dollar invested</a>. This represents the added value to a country’s overall development, including increased productivity due to improvements in educational achievement. </p>
<p>Given the burden that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4907549/">chronic diseases</a> already place on the Canadian health care system — a cost estimated at $190 billion each year — a $1 billion investment in the health of our next generation is a small price to pay. </p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/heapro/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/heapro/dat055">Public and political support are essential </a> to address the systemic barriers that undermine the health of children across Canada. If we want to improve the health of our population, from the youngest to the oldest, we must examine why so few of us are able to adopt healthy behaviours. And this requires us to look at our social norms and values that make it so hard to access healthy foods. </p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/management/News/News%20&%20Events/21135-Food-Price-Report-Eng-2017-Final.pdf">food prices on the rise</a>, and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-the-food-industry-conspiring-to-make-you-fat-81537">food environment that is not supportive of health</a>, we have to move beyond a focus on individual choice and responsibility as a solution to child hunger. Our children deserve more, and better, when it comes to good nutrition. </p>
<p>A national school food program is, put simply, the right thing to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sara FL Kirk receives funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Heart and Stroke, the Lawson Foundation, the Max Bell Foundation and the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation. She is a member of the Coalition for Healthy School Food, which is advocating for a national school food program. She is also a board member of Canada Bikes, a not-for-profit that promotes everyday cycling in Canada. </span></em></p>As Canadian kids head back to school this week, many will be hungry. Lacking fruits, vegetables and other nutritious foods, they will suffer mood problems, disease and low academic performance.Sara F.L. Kirk, Professor of Health Promotion, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/817872017-08-24T00:33:07Z2017-08-24T00:33:07ZWe should serve kids food in school, not shame<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183215/original/file-20170823-6615-lp4vam.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">All students deserve a healthy lunch when they go to school.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/serving-trays-delicious-food-closeup-concept-677113333?src=dBEX7Jg-7XGXmZG4vPw9Bw-3-58">Africa Studio / Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the past several years, reports have surfaced about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/well/family/lunch-shaming-children-parents-school-bills.html">the “shaming” of students</a> for outstanding school meal debts. These students, often from low-income families, are being publicly humiliated because they have unpaid debt in their school meal accounts.
Policies that shame students can include <a href="http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/06/gardendale_elementary_student.html">stamping</a> on children’s hands or arms, taking their food away and <a href="http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/news/57468293-78/lunches-olsen-students-district.html.csp">dumping it</a> in the trash or giving them stigmatized <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/u-s-schools-rethink-lunch-shaming-policies-humiliate-children-meal-debts/">cold, partial meals</a> in lieu of the regular hot lunch. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://education.uoregon.edu/users/sarah-stapleton">education researcher</a> who studies food in schools, I believe it’s our duty in schools to treat students with dignity and compassion. Moreover, access to food is a basic human need and should be considered a right – regardless of income. The best way to combat meal debt shame in U.S. public schools is to provide every student with free meals.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183216/original/file-20170823-6641-1y70j66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183216/original/file-20170823-6641-1y70j66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183216/original/file-20170823-6641-1y70j66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183216/original/file-20170823-6641-1y70j66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183216/original/file-20170823-6641-1y70j66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183216/original/file-20170823-6641-1y70j66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183216/original/file-20170823-6641-1y70j66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183216/original/file-20170823-6641-1y70j66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In many schools, students with unpaid meal debts get turned away at the register.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Morgan Lee</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Addressing the problem</h2>
<p>Public outcry about school meal shaming has sparked the creation of at least <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/09/news/economy/school-lunch-shaming-debt-crisis/index.html">30 GoFundMe campaigns</a> organized by <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-07-11/battling-school-lunch-shaming-and-end-of-year-debts">parents</a> and <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/CRLUNCHDEBT">teachers</a> to pay remaining balances on student accounts. One school volunteer has even created a <a href="http://feedthefutureforward.com/">nonprofit</a> to help pay for kids’ meals.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nmlegis.gov/Legislation/Legislation?Chamber=S&LegType=B&LegNo=374&year=17">New Mexico</a>, <a href="http://sd18.senate.ca.gov/news/5312017-senate-approves-legislation-prevent-school-lunch-shaming">California</a> and <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/24/house-backs-giddings-amendment-food-shaming/">Texas</a> have begun crafting legislation to prohibit withholding food from students or to ban meal debt shaming altogether.</p>
<p>All of this has led to the USDA issuing a <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/unpaid-meal-charges-local-meal-charge-policies">memorandum</a> for school districts to clearly communicate their policies for meal fees to parents and guardians. However, the policy only suggests guidelines and provides no solid prohibitions against the shaming of students.</p>
<p>In a more extensive attempt to address the issue, the <a href="http://www.frac.org/research/resource-library/anti-lunch-shaming-act-2017">Anti-Lunch Shaming Act of 2017</a> has been introduced in the House and Senate by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. This bill would ban the shaming of students, prohibit the throwing away of food after it’s been served, and require districts to communicate directly with parents and guardians about school food debts.</p>
<h2>Schools’ ethical responsibility</h2>
<p>While these measures are steps in the right direction, addressing lunch shaming is treating a symptom rather than the underlying disease. All students need to eat every day, regardless of the funds available to them.</p>
<p>Given that we provide free schooling for all students in the country – regardless of family income – perhaps we should reexamine our societal norms around feeding them as well. Sociologist <a href="http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/sociology/faculty/janet-poppendieck">Janet Poppendieck</a> suggests in her 2010 book “<a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520269880">Free for All</a>” that we can and should provide free food to all students in our schools.</p>
<p>This move is not unprecedented: <a href="http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:544062/FULLTEXT01">Sweden</a>, <a href="http://www.elo-saatio.fi/finnish-free-school-meals">Finland</a> and Estonia provide <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20081211223110/http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/doc_item.asp?DocId=82&DocCatId=1">free food to all students</a> in public schools, regardless of income.
(<a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/">Finland’s education system</a> is considered by many to be the best in the world, and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/11-best-school-systems-in-the-world-a7425391.html">Estonia</a> has been rated in the top 10.)</p>
<p>Why are we so reluctant to feed all students in the U.S.?</p>
<p>Prior to the 20th century, schools did not provide any kind of food for students: Students typically went home for lunch or brought their own food. This separation between eating and learning may have been a relic of the <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/descmind/">mind-body duality from Descartes</a>, which assumes that schools are for disembodied minds. In fact, school meals did not <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8640.html">begin</a> until the early 20th century Progressive Era, when charities, women’s groups and PTAs provided supplemental lunches to children in need. American schools began <a href="http://time.com/4496771/school-lunch-history/">offering meals</a> to students on a wide-scale basis as part of the New Deal program, partly (or perhaps mostly) to help <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8640.html">provide markets for agricultural surpluses</a>.</p>
<h2>The need</h2>
<p>Today there’s unprecedented need for students in the U.S. to be fed. For the first time in our history, the <a href="http://www.southerneducation.org/Our-Strategies/Research-and-Publications/New-Majority-Diverse-Majority-Report-Series/A-New-Majority-2015-Update-Low-Income-Students-Now">majority of students</a> in U.S. schools are living in poverty. Many of these students are food-insecure and dependent on the food provided in schools, sometimes as the <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/02/10/274899069/for-lower-income-students-snow-days-mean-hungry-tummies">only meals</a> they eat daily. </p>
<p>Over <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/NSLPFactSheet.pdf">31 million</a> students in the U.S. rely on free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program. Through the program, free meals are available to families who make <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/03/23/2016-06463/child-nutrition-programs-income-eligibility-guidelines">under US$31,500</a> for a household of four, while reduced-price lunches are available to families who make just below $45,000 for a family of four.</p>
<p>However, the income cutoffs for these programs don’t take into account the wide variation in cost of living across the country. Moreover, <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520269880">Poppendieck</a> has reflected that a family making just enough to be ineligible for free lunches may struggle as much as a family who qualifies.</p>
<p>The application for free/reduced lunches itself can be a barrier for students who might otherwise be eligible. Families may be worried about bringing attention to undocumented status through filling out an application, or they may simply be unclear about the process.</p>
<p>Families may also be ashamed to ask for help. For example, a teacher with whom I partnered in my <a href="https://d.lib.msu.edu/islandora/object/etd:3524">research</a> shared that though she experienced hunger as a child, her mother forbade her from accepting free meals at school. As a child, she didn’t understand why, but was nonetheless subject to her mother’s decisions.</p>
<p>In short, there are complicated nuances and challenges in understanding individual students’ food security. Shame is already a part of this picture. We shouldn’t be compounding it.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children have a right to school lunches – regardless of their family’s income.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Toby Talbot</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Addressing the need</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/sfsp/summer-food-service-program">Summer Food Service Program</a>, a partnership between the USDA, nonprofits and government agencies (including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/30/well/family/free-lunch-at-the-library.html?mcubz=1">libraries</a>), provides free meals for kids ages 2-18 during the summer months when public schools are not in session. In this program, all a child needs to do to be eligible for the food is to show up at the designated place and time. I believe that this model of providing free food to children and teens with no need for proof of eligibility should be used in our schools, too.</p>
<p>There have been some strides toward making free food for all students a reality. Thanks to the <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/community-eligibility-provision">Community Eligibility Provision</a> of the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, districts where at least 40 percent of students are served by benefit programs can choose to provide free food for all students. The federal government reimburses participating schools based on the percentages of students qualifying for benefit programs.</p>
<p>But this promising policy can lead to problems. For example, in the Portland, Oregon public schools, 12 schools <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2017/07/a_dozen_portland_schools_to_ax.html">lost their community eligibility status</a> over the summer of 2017 because their qualifying student percentages declined.</p>
<p>What’s more, while the Community Eligibility Provision serves broadly low-income areas, it doesn’t address the increasing and perplexing nature of <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/places-need">suburban poverty</a>, where children from low-income backgrounds may be overlooked because of the affluence around them.</p>
<p>It’s simply not enough to provide free meals to some students, or to all students in some schools. While providing free meals to all public school students would be costly, given that we provide textbooks, facilities, teachers, special education services and other essentials required for schooling, how can we continue to omit food as an educational essential? </p>
<p>Meal debt shaming is a serious problem, but student hunger is even more so. It’s time to move aggressively to make free food available to all students, in all U.S. public schools. It’s the least we can do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Riggs Stapleton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Students with unpaid meal debts have been experiencing some shaming policies at school. New rules are aimed at protecting these children, but the real solution may lie in free meals for all.Sarah Riggs Stapleton, Assistant Professor, Education Studies, College of Education, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/784142017-06-06T14:53:37Z2017-06-06T14:53:37ZHow South Africa can fix the fact that one in four of its children go hungry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172430/original/file-20170606-3677-iy7w6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/PR84/PR84.pdf">most recent data</a> shows that 27.4% of South African children under the age of five are too short for their age or suffer from stunting. </p>
<p>Children are stunted when they don’t grow at an adequate rate. The <a href="http://www.who.int/childgrowth/en/">World Health Organisation</a> has height standards for various age cohorts and defines stunting as a “height for age” value which is less than two notches below the norm.</p>
<p>Stunting is a measure of chronic hunger and is a long-term indicator of under-nutrition. The survey shows that one in four children go hungry. It reflects the cumulative effects of poor socioeconomic, environmental, health and nutritional conditions.</p>
<p>Nutritional status is important for children both as they develop in their mother’s womb and during the first two years of their life. This is known as the “unique window of opportunity” for their later development. If deprived in this time the damage from this lack of growth is irreversible. </p>
<p>South Africa’s 2016 <a href="http://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/PR84/PR84.pdf">Demographic and Health Survey</a> shows that stunting remains a national concern. At 27.4%, the stunting rate has remained the same since the last survey done in 2003. These are the highest recorded levels in the country.</p>
<p>In the intervening 13 years it was assumed that stunting was on the decline. This was based on other nutrition surveys which showed a drop in the rate. But the demographic survey suggests this is not the case. It shows that child hunger is not improving and may in fact be on the rise again.</p>
<p>We believe that there are two main reasons for the rise in stunting: poverty and malnutrition, which includes the fact that few mothers breastfeed their babies for six months as <a href="http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/exclusive_breastfeeding/en/">recommended</a> by the World Health Organisation as well the fact that the food they eat offers little nutrition. </p>
<p>Unless these two issues are tackled, South Africa’s stunting rates will continue to rise.</p>
<h2>The problem of poverty</h2>
<p>The demographic health survey confirms the connection between poverty and hunger. Children are stunted because their families do not have enough money to buy them enough healthy food. According to the study, 36% of children in the poorest 20% of households are stunted, compared to 13% of children in the richest 20% of households. </p>
<p>It’s no coincidence that country’s <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/?p=9561">unemployment rate is 27%</a>. Unemployed adults cannot feed their hungry children.</p>
<p>To address the issue of poverty and hunger, the South African government introduced a social grant system – which included a child support grant – in 1996. </p>
<p>The grants have had a <a href="https://www.unicef.org/evaldatabase/index_69960.html">positive impact</a> on the lives of poor people. Most poor people spend their additional income on basic needs, starting with food. </p>
<p>The child support grant reaches 12 million children. But the monthly payout of R380 per child is not sufficient to meet nutritional needs. </p>
<p>Research by the <a href="http://foodsecurity.ac.za/working-papers">Centre of Excellence in Food Security</a> has found that grants are put to number of different “uses”, including food, groceries, clothing, education and transport. There are also many “users” including unemployed family members, who do not receive any social assistance from the state. </p>
<p>For the child support grant to have a greater impact on the health of young children, policies that target resources to other members of the household will need to be considered. These include universal grants such as the long proposed <a href="https://theconversation.com/basic-income-for-all-could-lift-millions-out-of-poverty-and-change-how-we-think-about-inequality-53030">Basic Income Grant</a>, or family grants such as Brazil’s <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2013/11/04/bolsa-familia-Brazil-quiet-revolution">Bolsa Familia</a>. </p>
<h2>Malnutrition</h2>
<p>There are other drivers of malnutrition. One is poor childcare practices, such as not breastfeeding infants exclusively for the first six months. </p>
<p>Until recently South Africa had one of the world’s lowest rates of exclusive breastfeeding. The demographic health survey reported that this figure has risen from fourfold, from 8% in 2003 to 32% in 2016. This is extremely encouraging. </p>
<p>But the fact that the nutrition status of children hasn’t improved suggests that other factors are driving South Africa’s malnutrition rates.</p>
<p>Other options may be poor sanitation in dense settlements which result in frequent diarrhoea, or simply not getting sufficient nourishing food both during pregnancy and after being born. </p>
<p>The country can help improve the nutritional quality of food. It produces sufficient food and has adequate scientific knowledge to produce, process and distribute safe and healthy food. </p>
<p>Options already introduced in South Africa include <a href="http://www.foodfacts.org.za/Articles/FoodFortification.asp">food fortification</a> by adding vitamins and minerals, and dietary supplements. Food fortification improves the nutritional quality of the food supply and provides a public health benefit with minimal risk to health.</p>
<p>About 90% of wheat flour and 70% of maize meal on the market is fortified with vitamin A, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pyridoxine, folic acid, iron and zinc. </p>
<p>In addition, children can also get a Vitamin A <a href="http://www.adsa.org.za/Portals/14/Documents/DOH/Vit%20A%20policy%20guidelines%20OF%20S%20A%20-%20recent_1.pdf">supplement syrup</a> at the clinic every six months until they are five-years-old.</p>
<p>But the effect of these interventions isn’t being fully realised because many of these programmes have been <a href="http://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/661/ZP_Resources/fsp-research-paper-sa-case-study-22-august-2016.zp96264.pdf">poorly designed and implemented</a>.</p>
<h2>Getting the basics right</h2>
<p>Ultimately children living in poor households need to be supported by adults with jobs. They need caregivers who are not trying to stretch a comparatively small grant over the multiple needs of their families. And they need environments in which food can be safely prepared and consumed.</p>
<p>Bringing food to the mouths of children in South Africa requires action by all parts of society: its elected representatives, employers and food activists.</p>
<p>A convergence of science and policy is what is really needed, along with better cohesion, and better coordination at all levels of government.</p>
<p>The fact that one in every four children in South Africa go hungry should indeed be of national concern. The reality is that if nothing is done about it, it will only get worse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78414/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian May receives funding from the South African National Research Foundation and the World Bank</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Devereux receives funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa and the Newton Fund through the British Council.</span></em></p>Tackling the challenge of stunting in South Africa needs a convergence of science and policy along with better coordination at all levels of government.Julian May, Director DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security, University of the Western CapeStephen Devereux, Research Fellow, Institute of Development Studies, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/696602016-12-06T11:42:33Z2016-12-06T11:42:33ZEconomies grow when early childhood development is a priority<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/148589/original/image-20161205-19367-ubljcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Healthy, supported children can be a boon to their countries' economies. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Tiksa Negeri</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://thousanddays.org/the-issue/why-1000-days/">first 1000 days</a> of life – the period from conception to the age of two – are pivotal for any human being’s development. This has been shown repeatedly by every science that studies early childhood development: anatomy, epidemiology, genetics, immunology, physiology, psychology and public health.</p>
<p>And it is confirmed in several papers and commentaries in a <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/series/ECD2016">Lancet series</a> I led in my capacity as a distinguished professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and Director of the DST-NRF <a href="http://www.wits.ac.za/coe-human/">Centre of Excellence in Human Development</a>. Our newest work <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/series/ECD2016">powerfully demonstrates</a> that low-cost interventions which facilitate and support nurturing care for infants in their first years of life contribute to lifelong health, wellbeing and productivity. The economic benefits of these interventions far outweigh the investment costs.</p>
<p>Simply put, we need to intervene earlier than we currently do. In South Africa for instance, a great deal of emphasis in early childhood development (ECD) is placed on subsidising three and four-year-olds to attend creches and play centres. Early learning in preschool is important. But it is less effective than it could be because children’s foundational skills and capacities are laid down at a younger age – in the first 1000 days. </p>
<h2>A cycle of poverty</h2>
<p>Poor childhood conditions, such as exposure to poverty and stunting, are associated with long-term disadvantages to health, education, social adjustment and earnings.</p>
<p>In South Africa, <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-05-17-suffer-the-children-sas-inequality-strikes-hardest-where-it-hurts-the-most/">63% of children</a> younger than 18 live in poverty: that is, on less than R923 a month or R31 a day. <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-child-malnutrition-is-still-a-problem-in-south-africa-22-years-into-democracy-60224">And 27%</a> of 0-3 year olds are <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-child-malnutrition-is-still-a-problem-in-south-africa-22-years-into-democracy-60224">stunted</a>, a condition which results from long-term undernutrition, mainly of essential vitamins and minerals. This hampers the development of lean mass – skeleton, brain, internal organ size and function. </p>
<p>Children living in poverty and who are stunted tend to <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(16)30266-2/fulltext">go to school later</a>. They also tend to learn less, pass fewer grades, leave school earlier and earn less as adults. In turn, their children are more likely to grow up in poverty, lacking essential nutrients and learning experiences, trapping families and children in poverty for generations.</p>
<p>It is this negative cycle that most concerns <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)31574-4/fulltext">politicians and economists</a>. Countries can’t grow at the pace of their most able people because too many children and adults are left behind. The Lancet series estimates, globally, that individuals who experienced poor early development suffer a loss of about a quarter of adult average income a year. This makes their families poor too.</p>
<p>Importantly, these negative individual effects add up. <a href="http://www.costofhungerafrica.com/kypmd1u0vmrf5iro3c0prngjdftu5u">Studies</a> in several African countries estimate that the cost of hunger – the knock on effects of stunting on learning and earning – is 10.3% of GDP in Malawi, <a href="https://www.wfp.org/stories/hunger-costs-rwanda-us820-million-annually">11.5% in Rwanda</a> and 16.5% in Ethiopia. In South Africa we estimate that stunting results in a loss of future earnings of 1.3% of GDP, or R62 billion per year.</p>
<p>The series also <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/series/ECD2016">estimates</a> what poor early development costs countries, by comparing the future costs to current expenditure on health and education. For example, Pakistan is estimated to lose 8.2% of future GDP to poor child growth. This is three times what it currently spends on health as a percentage of GDP (2.8%). Countries that do not improve early childhood development are fighting a losing battle.</p>
<h2>Nurturing care</h2>
<p>Babies need love, care, protection and stimulation by stable parents and caregivers. In The Lancet series, this is referred to as “nurturing care”. Breastfeeding is a good example of nurturing care. Nurturing care can break down under conditions of severe stress and struggle. </p>
<p>Extremely poor families find it hard to provide nurturing care for young children. They sometimes don’t have the means for health care or nutritious food. They may be so emotionally drained by daily struggles that they feel unable to show interest in or encourage a young child. There are several ways in which governments and social services could support such families.</p>
<p>For instance, national policies can support families financially, give them time to spend with their young children and improve access to health and other services. Minimum wages and social grants protect families against the worst effects of poverty. Maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks at work and time for working mothers to take their children to clinics and doctors are also crucial.</p>
<p>Other meaningful interventions include free or subsidised health care, quality and affordable child care and preschool education.</p>
<p>Many politicians and policymakers may fear that dedicated early child development are beyond their budgets. As I’ve already pointed out, the return on investment of such programmes is substantially more than the cost of implementing them. But The Lancet series went further: we modelled the cost of adding two early child development programmes to existing packages of maternal and child health services. </p>
<h2>A worthwhile investment</h2>
<p>The first programme is community-based group treatment for maternal depression. Addressing maternal depression is important because it <a href="http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/8/11-088187/en/">adversely affects</a> a mother’s ability to provide nurturing care. The second programme is a child development stimulation programme, <a href="http://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/documents/care_child_development/en/">Care for Child Development</a>, which can be implemented in health care facilities or in community programmes. </p>
<p>Our research modelled the cost of expanding these programmes to universal levels in 73 countries that experience a high burden of child mortality, growth and development. The cost of bringing both programmes to 98% coverage over the next 15 years is US$34 billion. </p>
<p>The additional cost for the supply-side of the programmes in the year 2030 is on average, 50 US cents per capita. This varies from 20c in low income countries where costs are lower, to 70c per capital in middle income countries. </p>
<p>The evidence consolidated in this series points to effective interventions and delivery approaches at a scale that was not envisaged before. During the next 15 years, world leaders have a unique opportunity to invest in the early years for long-term individual and societal gains and for the achievement of the <a href="http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/">sustainable development goals</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69660/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Lancet Series "Advancing Early Child Development: From Science to Scale" was supported by grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Conrad N Hilton Foundation through the World Health Organization and UNICEF</span></em></p>Poor childhood conditions, such as exposure to poverty and stunting, are associated with long-term disadvantages to health, education, social adjustment and earnings.Linda M. Richter, Director, DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/608752016-06-22T14:25:28Z2016-06-22T14:25:28ZGhana’s school feeding scheme is slowly changing children’s lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126731/original/image-20160615-14057-15cyyi1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children struggle to learn when they're hungry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Bruno Domingos </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Millions of Ghanaian children <a href="http://uni.cf/1UOReAB">live in poverty</a>. About one in ten – roughly 1.27 million – come from households that are so poor they <a href="http://uni.cf/1UOReAB">can’t afford</a> the amount and type of food that’s needed to stave off malnutrition. </p>
<p>Without proper food, children are prone to stunted growth or are underweight for their age. And their schooling suffers, too: <a href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001429/142929eo.pdf">research</a> has <a href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0017/001780/178022e.pdf">repeatedly shown</a> that children struggle to learn when they are not properly fed and nourished. </p>
<p>A school feeding programme introduced by the Ghanaian government more than a decade ago has gone some way to tackling the problem of hunger. The programme has reached millions of children – and it’s been proved to keep them in school far longer than their hungry peers. Now some more work is needed to make the project sustainable and to ensure it doesn’t constantly have to rely on donor funds.</p>
<h2>Millions of children reached</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.schoolfeeding.gov.gh/">Ghana School Feeding Programme</a> was initiated in 2005 by the country’s government in collaboration with the Dutch government. Its primary objectives are to increase school enrolment, attendance and retention among children in kindergartens and primary schools. It also, of course, aims to reduce hunger and malnutrition. </p>
<p>The programme started as a pilot project with ten schools, one from each of Ghana’s ten regions. This was later increased to 298 schools, reaching about 234,000 children in 138 schooling districts. In March 2016, it was reaching more than 1.7 million children every day – about 30% of all Ghanaian primary and kindergarten pupils.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126476/original/image-20160614-29216-1wo1pma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126476/original/image-20160614-29216-1wo1pma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126476/original/image-20160614-29216-1wo1pma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126476/original/image-20160614-29216-1wo1pma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126476/original/image-20160614-29216-1wo1pma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126476/original/image-20160614-29216-1wo1pma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126476/original/image-20160614-29216-1wo1pma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126476/original/image-20160614-29216-1wo1pma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children line up for a meal at their school in Ghana.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Each day, children receive a hot, nutritious meal. This is made up of locally produced foods like rice, dried African locust bean seeds, African carp and sesame leaves, and of fortified food rations supplied by the World Food Programme. The rations include 150g of fortified corn-soy blend, 3g of iodised salt and 10g of palm oil per child per day.</p>
<p>There is also a second feeding category: girls in selected schools in Ghana’s three northern regions are <a href="https://www.wfp.org/stories/ghana-girls-reach-their-full-potential-take-home-rations">given</a> food to take home each time they attend school for 85% of the month. This food <a href="https://www.wfp.org/stories/ghana-girls-reach-their-full-potential-take-home-rations">includes</a> rice, maize, vegetable oil and iodised salt.</p>
<p>The ration programme for girls started in 1999 and has been gradually absorbed into the bigger school feeding programme. It has yielded remarkable results: girls’ enrolment in these selected schools has <a href="https://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2016/03/04/world-food-programme-to-support-school-feeding-programme/">grown</a> from 9,000 to 42,000 between 1999 and 2016. Retention rates have doubled to 99%. This scheme is essential in tackling gender disparity in education, particularly in northern Ghana’s food-insecure and deprived communities where girls’ education is <a href="https://www.modernghana.com/news/399838/50-northern-region-girls-receive-wfpges-scholarships.html">not often prioritised</a> by families. </p>
<p>Sadly the ration programme for girls is being slowly <a href="http://documents.wfp.org/stellent/groups/public/documents/newsroom/wfp207421.pdf">phased out</a> – its managers believe their work is done given the huge spike in retention rates. Now the focus will be entirely on the bigger school feeding scheme, which has also been very successful. It has, according to my <a href="http://www.equityforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Abuja-PaperCompendium.pdf">own research</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>increased school enrolment by 20%;</li>
<li>reduced truancy and absenteeism;</li>
<li>lowered school drop-out rates; and</li>
<li>improved individual academic performance and the participating schools’ overall performance too.</li>
</ul>
<p>These are all excellent, positive results. But there’s still work to be done. </p>
<h2>Plotting the next steps</h2>
<p>One of the biggest problems facing the programme is a lack of funding. It cannot be rolled out more widely because there just isn’t enough money.</p>
<p>Schools that aren’t currently part of the programme are struggling. A survey conducted in Ghana’s Sekyere Kumawu district found that non-beneficiary schools were actually losing pupils. The same study <a href="http://jcss.our.dmu.ac.uk/files/2013/03/JCSS-Ghana-School-Feeding-Winter-2015.pdf">revealed</a> that pupils were switching to the schools that offer the scheme in order to receive the benefits. </p>
<p>The government and stakeholders need to put mechanisms in place that will strengthen the existing programme, allow it to expand into other schools and make it sustainable. The government must wean the programme of its reliance on donor funds. It can learn here from the experiences of South Africa’s national school feeding programme, which is funded by the country’s National Treasury. This approach ensures that the government takes ownership of the programme and plans for its sustainability.</p>
<p>Policy will be important: the programme falls under Ghana’s National Social Protection Strategy, but should be bolstered with a strong legal and policy framework that clearly maps the way forward. This legislation should delineate the guidelines for implementation and institutional mechanisms to make sure the programme delivers what is necessary.</p>
<p>Finally, a robust monitoring and evaluation framework will be needed to ensure that the programme’s organisers learn from their failures and successes. This way adjustments can be made along the way so that Ghana’s children can keep getting the meals they need at school.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60875/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Addaney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghana’s school feeding programme has reached millions of children in the past 11 years. It does important work, but needs more support to grow and become sustainable.Michael Addaney, Assistant Researcher at the Quality Assurance and Planning Unit, University of Energy and Natural ResourcesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/574682016-04-22T10:02:50Z2016-04-22T10:02:50ZShould schools provide free breakfast in classrooms?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119685/original/image-20160421-26981-so806o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Does the place of breakfast matter?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/amslerpix/15322558323/in/photolist-pm17L4-3nbnzX-ne3TVH-qFh5fN-8EVRmL-8hrBxV-9chSab-7BgZnK-oPWdc3-quB5ar-hXVQoz-okGd94-8NCq6h-vuJAjL-nLhJED-oZ8whY-7svoZ9-2dMfsj-oeMiRv-DtNfZ-8i87Mk-6pCvB7-9A355D-nHiBfF-2dMfsw-piE7UU-5FEXCQ-9Dk2s8-5vDSaf-6pCyky-9zj6we-9A36EX-fQt3UX-2dMfsW-ayDKwP-5Erubi-pYci4m-9DjPj8-BH9Gt-hLTdig-axUdAF-fck434-X23rc-domBh-65WYSJ-4ujvN6-q2FNPU-PnUrA-e4WWTJ-CPYv3">David Amsler</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Child hunger is a serious problem: <a href="http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx#children">48 million Americans</a>, including more than <a href="https://www.nokidhungry.org/problem/hunger-facts">15 million children</a>, live in households that lack the means to get enough nutritious food on a regular basis. In large cities, about 25 percent of households with children do not have sufficient food.</p>
<p>The federally funded <a href="http://www.fns.usda.gov/sbp/school-breakfast-program-sbp">National School Breakfast Program</a> has long sought to improve these numbers, by providing a free or low-cost breakfast for students in participating schools. In addition to reducing food insecurity, the program has been found to improve students’ <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40057265?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">health and nutritional intake</a> as well as their <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.12.003">academic achievement</a>.</p>
<p>Even though school breakfast is affordable (or free), meets federal nutrition guidelines and has the potential to benefit children in multiple ways, participation in the School Breakfast Program is surprisingly low. Nationally, only <a href="http://frac.org/pdf/School_Breakfast_Scorecard_SY_2014_2015.pdf">about half of eligible students</a> participating in the School Lunch Program take breakfast.</p>
<p>In fact, in New York City, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.06.007">less than a third</a> of all students take a breakfast each day. This is particularly surprising because breakfast <a href="http://www.schoolfoodnyc.org/OurPrograms/breakfast.htm">has been offered free</a> to all students since September 2003. </p>
<p>So why are the numbers taking advantage of free breakfast so low? What difference might it make if they were higher? </p>
<h2>Why don’t kids eat free breakfast?</h2>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.janetpoppendieck.com/free_for_all.html">several reasons</a> that participation in the School Breakfast Program is low.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119539/original/image-20160420-25634-1cosjgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119539/original/image-20160420-25634-1cosjgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119539/original/image-20160420-25634-1cosjgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119539/original/image-20160420-25634-1cosjgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119539/original/image-20160420-25634-1cosjgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119539/original/image-20160420-25634-1cosjgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119539/original/image-20160420-25634-1cosjgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Why don’t children eat breakfast?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sherimiya/16265224638/in/photolist-qMiwBy-8EVRmL-9chSab-dgDFNC-dZwYet-pPUKJM-dZx97M-6CNzQM-euSRkZ-6pypTD-dZwMYF-dZx7JH-9xUZYr-6pyiwZ-5X4oH5-dZx4c2-o4ee2d-dZwU2B-QWcc-dd6k7a-5LztEk-okGd94-dZCEXy-6ka5iR-7UKYRf-intT5U-dCoWKQ-dZwYUB-dZx51g-dZCPuQ-jUSMBZ-quB5ar-dZwQbX-dZx5Yg-dZx1cT-dZwZUK-dZCPc5-dZwXXr-dZCBad-9Mooba-nHUr6x-dZCKFh-dZCGrN-dZwPBT-bEF6pD-qLFVbR-dZx2yn-dZxbRt-4z9Q9d-dZCGJy">sheri chen</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>First, breakfast is offered in the cafeteria before school hours, and many students are unable to arrive to school early, because of transportation or family commitments. Second, children may not be aware that breakfast is served in the cafeteria before school. Finally, children are often unwilling because of the stigma associated with a trip to the cafeteria for a free breakfast.</p>
<p>Introduced more than a decade ago, Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC) has been adopted in many school districts as part of the school day. Breakfast is offered free to all students in their classroom at the start of the day, rather than providing it in the cafeteria before the bell. Cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, Detroit, Cincinnati and Newark show <a href="http://frac.org/pdf/School_Breakfast_Large_School_Districts_SY2013_2014.pdf">high rates of participation</a>.</p>
<h2>Here is how it works</h2>
<p>Breakfast in the Classroom is given during the first 10-20 minutes of the school day. It typically includes cold, packaged items (such as cereal, bagels, yogurt and fresh fruit). In some schools, breakfast is offered on mobile carts as students walk in the door (“Grab-n-Go”), or as a “Second Chance” breakfast, between the first and second periods of middle or high school.</p>
<p>New York City began rolling out Breakfast in the Classroom in 2007. According to the <a href="http://www.schoolfoodnyc.org/OurPrograms/bic.htm">Department of Education</a>, the program is now offered in nearly 500 of the city’s 1,700 schools. The city serves over 30,000 classroom breakfasts each day. Beginning this year, it is expanding the program to all elementary schools. And there are plans to extend the program to all schools in the district. </p>
<p>Advocates for the program argue that in addition to reducing hunger and food insecurity, moving breakfast from the cafeteria into the classroom will, in turn, improve school attendance and academic performance. Some also argue it will improve student engagement by building a sense of community around eating breakfast together, and provide an opportunity to integrate nutrition and healthy eating habits into the curriculum. </p>
<p>However, critics have raised concerns that Breakfast in the Classroom could contribute to weight gain, as some children consume more calories by eating two breakfasts – one at home and one at school. Or that the program could take away from instructional time at the start of the school day. </p>
<h2>What does evidence show?</h2>
<p>Our <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21909">research looked at the early effects of New York City’s Breakfast in the Classroom program</a>. We examined the program’s effects on school breakfast participation, student weight outcomes including body mass index (BMI) and obesity, as well as academic outcomes. We tracked data on student weight and academic achievement at different points of time, to compare students in schools that did and did not adopt the program.</p>
<p>Our sample included students in over 1,100 NYC public elementary and middle schools between the 2006-07 and 2011-12 school years (of which about 300 offered Breakfast in the Classroom at the time of our study). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119538/original/image-20160420-25641-pmv9tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/119538/original/image-20160420-25641-pmv9tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119538/original/image-20160420-25641-pmv9tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119538/original/image-20160420-25641-pmv9tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119538/original/image-20160420-25641-pmv9tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119538/original/image-20160420-25641-pmv9tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/119538/original/image-20160420-25641-pmv9tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Does breakfast in classroom lead to obesity?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/16076267243/in/photolist-quB5ar-dZwQbX-dZx5Yg-dd6k7a-6ka5iR-dCoWKQ-dZx1cT-dZwZUK-dZCPc5-qLFVbR-4z9Q9d-dZCuYN-dZCHLJ-dgDA3Y-6pCvB7-dgDyVV-dgDG4m-dgDwqx-dZx3Mn-d7y3r5-gVUZP1-4z5B84-4YDEcH-ayDKwP-owWQhG-puw6AV-9mEz7N-fVpwA-dgDxLK-4z5uFp-7UL9Pf-aaBWHB-c3rpeQ-is5cKu-czgUnf-4DiFVY-dS5sep-o4YtVJ-nuQ1L7-mNk86d-719kfJ-7uVZnM-ejzKtG-oSpHap-ffGooM-4z5BRP-6pCyky-4z5ymX-fwydYF-opGAGQ">U.S. Department of Agriculture</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>To begin with, we found that serving breakfast in classroom substantially increased school breakfast participation. For example, in schools offering breakfast in classroom in 25 percent or more of classrooms but not schoolwide, the participation rate nearly doubled. The increase was even higher – about two-and-a-half times – for schools offering the program schoolwide. </p>
<p>Importantly, we found no evidence that Breakfast in the Classroom led to student weight gain. We found no impact on BMI or the incidence of obesity. We also found no evidence that breakfast in the classroom reduced academic performance, as measured by achievement on reading and math standardized tests for students in grades three through eight. </p>
<h2>Serve breakfast in classrooms</h2>
<p>Our study suggests that the program certainly did no harm by taking away from instructional time or increasing student weight. </p>
<p>Other rigorous research on Breakfast in the Classroom has found the program can <a href="http://www.appam.org/assets/1/7/Breakfast_at_the_Desk_The_Impact_of_Universal_Breakfast_Programs_on_Academic_Performance.pdf">improve school attendance</a> and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21759">increase academic achievement</a>. </p>
<p>Taken together, our results show serving breakfast in the classroom increased participation in school breakfast even when free breakfast was being served in the school cafeteria.</p>
<p>Our work also shows critics’ fears that the Breakfast in the Classroom program will cause weight gain and reduce academic performance due to a loss of instructional time are largely unwarranted. There is no reason, therefore, not to expand Breakfast in the Classroom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research described here was supported by Award Number 1R01HD070739 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development or the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research described here was supported by Award Number 1R01HD070739 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research described here was supported by Award Number 1R01HD070739 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors.</span></em></p>More than 15 million children live in homes that do not have enough food. However, the number of children taking advantage of free breakfast in schools is low. What can schools do?Sean Corcoran, Associate Professor of Educational Economics, New York UniversityAmy Ellen Schwartz, Professor of Public Policy, Education, and Economics and Director of the NYU Institute for Education and Social Policy, New York UniversityMichele Leardo, Assistant Director of Education and Social Policy, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.