A COMPARISON OF FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS IN MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES

The social safety nets in Mexico and the United States rely heavily on food assistance programs to ensure food security and access to safe and nutritious foods. To achieve these general goals, both countries' programs are exclusively paid for out of internal funds and both target low-income households and/or individuals. Despite those similarities, economic, cultural, and demographic differences between the countries lead to differences in their abilities to ensure food security and access to safe and nutritious foods. Mexico uses geographic and household targeting to distribute benefits while the United States uses only household targeting. U.S. food assistance programs tend to be countercyclical (as the economy expands, food assistance expenditures decline and vice-versa). Mexican food assistance programs appear to be neither counter- nor procyclical. Food assistance programs have little effect on the extent of poverty in Mexico, while the opposite is true in the United States, primarily because the level of benefits as a percentage of income is much lower in Mexico and a much higher percentage of eligible households receive benefits from food assistance programs in the United States.Food assistance programs, social safety net, targeting methods, macroeconomy, poverty, Progresa, DICONSA, FIDELIST, LICONSA, DIF, Food Stamp Program, WIC, the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty,

A Comparative Analysis of Japan and United States School Lunch Programs

Question: Are school lunch policies and programs in Japan beneficial and applicable to the United States? Main points: Japan has a certification program that allows dietitians to teach nutrition. Japan also includes agricultural experiences as part of its academic curriculum to promote holistic development in students. Conclusion: The School Lunch program in the United States would benefit from providing an avenue through which dietitians are able to teach students nutrition and from increasing the number of schools involved in Farm to School so that more students have experiences with nature

The School Meals Program

The National School Meals Programs affect the lives of almost all school children in the United States today. The National School Lunch Program, available in 99% of US public schools and 83% of private and public schools combined, serves over 31 million school children on a typical school day—nearly 64% of school-age children. The total federal cost of the School Meals Programs was $14.9 billion in 2012, and most of the funding is provided to school districts through federal reimbursement for free and reduced-price meals, with cash payments for the National School Lunch Program representing about 70$2.93 for free lunches, $2.53 for reduced-price lunches, and$0.28 for other qualifying lunches. In addition, schools participating in the National School Lunch Program receive USDA Foods (“entitlement” foods) valued at 22.75 cents in school year 2013 for each lunch served

Restructuring Local School Wellness Policies: Amending the Kids Act to Fight Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity is a major problem plaguing the United States. Over one-third of children are overweight, and there is little indication that this trend will reverse in the near future. The federal government has attempted to combat childhood obesity through the National School Lunch Act, which regulates the quality of foods federally subsidized schools may serve to children, and provides broad goals for physical activity. These basic goals leave extensive room for states to implement different standards, and they are not sufficient to effectively confront the childhood obesity problem. This Note proposes amendments to the National School Lunch Act that increase the requirements for physical activity for schools participating in the National School Lunch Program. By raising the standards and forcing schools to increase actual physical activity among children, the United States can begin to take strides in the right direction to combat childhood obesity

Restructuring Local School Wellness Policies: Amending the Kids Act to Fight Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity is a major problem plaguing the United States. Over one-third of children are overweight, and there is little indication that this trend will reverse in the near future. The federal government has attempted to combat childhood obesity through the National School Lunch Act, which regulates the quality of foods federally subsidized schools may serve to children, and provides broad goals for physical activity. These basic goals leave extensive room for states to implement different standards, and they are not sufficient to effectively confront the childhood obesity problem. This Note proposes amendments to the National School Lunch Act that increase the requirements for physical activity for schools participating in the National School Lunch Program. By raising the standards and forcing schools to increase actual physical activity among children, the United States can begin to take strides in the right direction to combat childhood obesity

Best Practices in Creating a Healthy School Lunch Program

Childhood obesity has become an epidemic in the United States. Diet is the most significant contributor to childhood obesity and a large portion of school children’s calories are derived from school meals. This research project will seek to understand the school lunch program and what can be done to improve it. The research seeks to understand the current state of the school lunch program through literature review and surveys of schools. The research will include interviews with directors of nutrition from schools that have achieved best practices. It will focus specifically on improvements schools have made to their school lunches, the difficulty of each change, and how they were able to make the improvements

The National School Lunch Program

The National School Lunch (NSLP) Program is a federally assisted meal program that began in 1946 and is designed to provide nutritionally balanced lunches to children. The program started slowly in 1853, in a few school districts around the United States. The efforts spread throughout different cities, and organizations were set in place to serve meals to children in schools under the supervision of the school boards. The American Dietetic Association believes that all children and adolescents should have access to food and nutrition programs that ensure adequate food supply that promotes optimal physical. and social growth and development. School lunches must meet the recommendations put into place by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Some of the recommendations are that no more than 30% of calories should come from fat, and less than 10% from saturated fat. There are many challenges that schools face pertaining to the school lunch program. Some schools have found solutions to these problems such as providing nutrition education for students and teaching students to make healthy choices. The school lunch program was put into place to help provide adequate nutrition to children and adolescents. The school lunch program has worked with health care professionals to provide balanced meals to students

USDA’s Temporary Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) Program Issued $70.9 Billion in Benefits From 2020 to 2023

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed in March 2020, authorized USDA to create the temporary Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer program (P-EBT) in response to Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic disruptions to the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program. In typical years, on average, about 30 million children receive breakfast or lunch—often for free or at a reduced-price—through these programs each school day. As the pandemic forced the closure of schools, millions of children lost access to meals they otherwise would have received. The aim of the P-EBT program was to issue benefits to qualifying households with children in the 50 United States, Washington, DC, and U.S. territories for the value of school meals that were forgone because of pandemic-related disruptions to onsite instruction at schools

The Development of a School Lunch Observation Measure to Assess School District Lunch Menu Implementation

Background: The most recent estimate of the prevalence of child and adolescent obesity in the United States is 17% (Ogden, Carroll, Lawman, & et, 2016). Based on evidence that the availability of healthy food at schools can significantly impact the nutrition behaviors of children, the Healthy and Hunger Free-Kids Act sets policy for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), which includes the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) (USDA, 2017a). School food authorities (SFAs) are responsible for administering school feeding programs (Byker, Pinard, Yaroch, & Serrano, 2013). In other words, local school authorities (school districts) design lunch menus that meet the USDA meal pattern and schools within the districts are expected to deliver the menu as intended. However, there is lack of information to determine if schools deliver the school district lunch menu as intended or if they adhere to the feeding program. Hence, the purpose of this study was to develop, and to establish content validity of an observation tool used to access and report the school district lunch menu implementation across three assessment period of the elementary school lunch time. (i.e., in the beginning, middle, and end of the lunchtime). Methods: The development of this tool involved two phases: (1) Development phase and, (2) Content validity phase. For phase 1, the tool was developed based on existing tools from the literature and the USDA Lunch Meal Pattern. For phase 2, the content validity of the tool was established using research and practitioner raters, who were experts in nutrition and familiar with USDA policy on school meals. Results: The results of this study were organized according to the two phases established in this study. For phase 1, there were three (3) items and four (4) sub-items generated and operationalized for the school lunch menu implementation outcome tool. These items included school menu implementation outcome, quantity, and quality of the meal. The four sub-items, (which were referred to as the four indicators of quality) included meal appearance, fresh/whole food item, transitioned food item, and highly processed food item. For phase 2, each item was rated by 5 expert raters. One of the sub-items “meal appearance’ was eliminated, and the remaining items were retained based on a minimum value of 0.99. Also, more emphasis was placed on the sub-item “meal appearance” as being subjective if measured. Discussion/Conclusions: The school lunch menu observation tool, based on a literature review, is the first tool developed to measure the implementation outcome of school district lunch menus. Data from the second phase demonstrated content validity. The items received perfect scores based on the rating metrics. This study findings suggest that public health researchers conduct further research to validate an instrument of school lunch implementation. A observation tool of this type may be useful for public health research and practice. Keywords: Childhood Obesity, Content validity, School lunch program, Observation tool

Household Food Security in the United States, 2004

Eighty-eight percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2004, meaning that they had access, at all times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households were food insecure at least some time during that year. The prevalence of food insecurity rose from 11.2 percent of households in 2003 to 11.9 percent in 2004, and the prevalence of food insecurity with hunger rose from 3.5 percent to 3.9 percent. This report, based on data from the December 2004 food security survey, provides the most recent statistics on the food security of U.S. households, as well as on how much they spent for food and the extent to which food-insecure households participated in Federal and community food assistance programs. Survey responses indicate that the typical food-secure household in the United States spent 31 percent more on food than the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household composition. Just over half of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food assistance programs during the month prior to the survey. About 20 percent of food-insecure households3.5 percent of all U.S. households obtained emergency food from a food pantry at some time during the year.Food security, food insecurity, hunger, food spending, food pantry, soup kitchen, emergency kitchen, material well-being, Food Stamp Program, National School Lunch Program, WIC, Food Security and Poverty,