Kids' Safe and Healthful Foods Project

School meal programs and the individuals who run them have come under intense scrutiny in recent years as they planned for and implemented the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s healthier standards for foods and drinks offered to the nation’s students. But it is not just breakfast and lunch menus that have changed; vending machine options, a la carte lines, food-based fundraising practices, and more are being improved to meet the updated school nutrition rules that began to take effect in the 2012-13 school year (SY).

Schools can serve healthy lunches, but whether kids will eat them is a question that has been asked often since the 2012-13 school year, when districts across the United States raised the nutritional quality of meals to meet updated national standards.

Each day across the United States, more than 4 million children, many from low-income families, receive meals and snacks through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). The program, which began as the Child Care Food Program in 1968, provides funding for these foods, in the form of reimbursements, to a variety of child care, after-school, and adult day care institutions that serve young children, older adults, and chronically disabled people. Through CACFP, the USDA aims to ensure that all of these vulnerable populations have daily access to nutritious foods.

As school districts nationwide serve more nutritious foods to students, cafeterias have become classrooms that help children to develop healthy eating habits for a lifetime. Lunchrooms also serve as gathering places for parent-teacher organizations and student groups. And schools across the country are making their kitchen facilities available to the public for activities that promote health and community engagement, such as cooking classes, business incubation, and food storage for after-school events.

More than half of public school districts in the United States are in rural communities where millions of students struggle with poverty and hunger. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 24 percent of rural children lived in poverty and 686,000 rural households with children were food insecure in 2014. About 95 percent of rural schools participate in the National School Lunch Program, and many also operate federally funded breakfast and snack programs. But because of their remote locations and smaller populations of students and potential employees, these districts face acute challenges in delivering healthy meals.