School Meals: Building Blocks for healthy Children

摘要

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) hold the potential to provide nearly all the nations schoolchildren with access to nutritious, low-cost meals to support their growth, development, and health. The NSLP alone is available in 99 percent of U.S. public schools and in 83 percent of private and public schools. In fiscal year 2007, the participating schools served about 5.1 billion lunches at a federal cost of approximately $8.7 billion. If a school participates in one or both of the school meal programs, any child who attends the school may have access to the school meal. Various laws and regulations govern the operation of the school meal programs. In 1995, new Nutrition Standards and Meal Requirements were put in place to ensure that the meals offered will be of high nutritional quality. The eight recommendations in this report update those Nutrition Standards and Meal Requirements, shift the focus toward meeting recommendations in Dietary Guidelines for Americans, emphasize the need for effective implementation, and identify key research topics.