How Policy Impacts What Kids Eat

A fully-funded Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill would improve food in schools

We are at a critical moment in food policy and health policy.   The Child Nutrition Act, which governs the School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, WIC, Child and Adult Care Food Program, and other federal programs that provide food to children, is up for reauthorization this year.  The program must be reviewed and reauthorized once every five years, so we have a rare chance to greatly improve the quality of the food kids eat in schools.  Which is currently terrible: cheap, highly processed, and full of fat, sugar, and salt.

Tom Philpott over at Grist puts it into perspective: “Currently, we spend about $11 billion annually on school lunches — less than a month’s worth of military spending.  At that level, school administrators typically have less than a dollar a day to spend on ingredients for each lunch they serve.”  The result?  Kids are eating this and this and THIS.  Basically, we’re poisoning our kids and condemning them to a life of obesity and diabetes.  It’s no joke.

So changing the way our kids eat in schools is the first, and perhaps most fundamental step we must take if we are going to take the issues of childhood obesity and diabetes seriously.  The Administration seems to be doing so.  Obama initially proposed a $1 billion per-year increase in funding, representing $10 billion over ten years.  That would represent a significant jump in funding, but still wouldn’t be enough to make the changes we need to how our kids eat in schools.

‘Chefs Move To Schools’ Launches at White House

Culinary World Will Help to Address Poor Nutrition in Our Schools

I could not be more excited.  Chefs are gathering in the White House today for the launch of the Chefs Move to Schools program, a component of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative to fight childhood obesity.

The program creates a roundtable of chefs who will attempt to address the large-scale issues related to nutrition in schools, but perhaps more importantly, encourages them to establish direct relationships with the schools themselves. The idea is that each chef will “adopt” a school, teaching kids about food and cooking and starting initiatives like school gardens.

The chefs are helping to disavow the idea that kids won’t eat healthy fresh things. They will, especally if they are presented in a fun way:

Chef Todd Gray of Equinox succeeded in getting kids to wolf down a cucumber and bread salad and a smoothie with blood orange and beet juices.

I couldn’t be more thrilled — Not only will the chefs have an impact on the schools they choose to adopt, but the media attention that this is sure to get will be pivotal to drawing attention to the serious problem of how we feed our kids.  And that’s how we’ll achieve change on both the cultural and policy levels.

This is just too awesome.  Michelle Obama, thanks for giving me the best one-week blog birthday present EVER!

Up-to the minute coverage on the launch at Obamafoodorama

Chefs Move to Schools: A nutritious program kids can sink their teeth into [Washington Post]

Chefs Move [Via Let's Move]