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Grocery shopping for school-age kids is not a relaxing, easy-to-manage weekly chore. It’s a constant battle to make sure the refrigerator is stocked with enough fruit to feed an army, cold cuts for sandwiches, and chicken nuggets and frozen pizza to feed hungry kids after sports practice. During the school year, when schedules are even more packed and kids are exhausted after a day of school and extracurriculars, it’s even more important that parents stock their cabinets with the snacks their kids will actually eat…….Continue reading….
Source: Parents
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Critics:
Free school meals can be universal school meals for all students or limited by income-based criteria, which can vary by country. A 2018 study of a free school meal program in the United States found that providing free meals to elementary and middle school children in areas characterized by high food insecurity led to better school discipline among the students. As of 2022 in England, 20.8% of the 8.9 million pupils attending schools in 2020–21 are known to be eligible for free school meals.
Free school meals available for all students are also called Universal school meals. Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Brazil and India are among the few countries which provide universal school meals to all pupils in compulsory education, regardless of their ability to pay. In India, where all Government School students are provided with free lunches through the Midday Meal Scheme, staple foods are provided along with free education. Several states in the US offer universal school meals.
School meals can also be targeted, often toward students who are poor or otherwise vulnerable. Such targeting can be geographic (providing school meals in all schools with a region that is deemed food insecure or lower income), school-based (targeting schools with a population of generally poor students), or based on individual characteristics (targeting students based on their household income, ethnic status, or other individual traits).
Across different settings and school meal programs, many different approaches are used when targeting school meals. Reduced price meals are also available in some countries to those who need a degree of assistance with costs. Lower-cost meals are available to students in such countries as France, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, Portugal, and the United States. In some programs, meals are made available for purchase in school cafeterias/canteens at full price.
For example, in the United States, students who do not qualify for reduced price lunches can still purchase food at the full price. In the United Arab Emirates, all food in school cafeterias is available for purchase, though prices reflect only the cost of the food itself. School meals can be cooked in a kitchen (whether in each school or in a centralized kitchen, with the cooked food then delivered to individual schools).
School meals can also be uncooked, serving cold sandwiches or packaged biscuits. For example, the National School Nutrition Program in Egypt serves only Ma’amoul, a baked food item made with dates.The objectives and benefits of school meals vary. In developing countries, school meals provide food security at times of crisis and help children to become healthy and productive adults, thus helping to break the cycle of poverty and hunger.
They can address micronutrient deficiencies by serving diverse foods or including fortified foods. They also serve as an incentive to send children to school and continue their education, and they can be leveraged specifically to reduce barriers to schooling for girls. When school meals are targeted toward low-income or vulnerable children, they serve as a social safety net.Especially in developed countries, school meals are structured to encourage healthy eating habits.
School meal programs can also be aimed at supporting the domestic or local agricultural sector. Today, the National School Lunch Program is a federal nutrition assistance program operating in over 101,000 public schools, non-profit private schools, and residential care institutions. It is regulated and administered at the federal level by the Food and Nutrition Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The program provides “nutritionally balanced meals” at low or no cost to more than 31 million children each school day. Since its inception, the Program has expanded substantially. It now includes the School Breakfast Program, the Snack Program, a Child and Adult Care Food Program, and the Summer Food Service Program. At the State level, the National School Lunch Program is usually administered by state education agencies, which operate the program through agreements with school food authorities.
School meal programs in the United States provide meals free of charge, or at a reduced (government-subsidized) price, to the children of low-income families. Those who do not qualify for free or reduced price are charged a nominal fee.
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