Choices Magazine Discusses National School Lunch Program
The National School Lunch Program touches the lives of almost all school children in the United States today. The lunch program is available in 99 percent of U.S. public schools and 83 percent of private and public schools combined. In addition, the School Breakfast Program is available in 85% of public schools. For children who participate in the breakfast and lunch program, the school meal setting offers nearly half of the meals they consume during a week. In 2007, the school lunch program served over 30 million school children in a day. The primary funding source is federal reimbursement for free and reduced -price meals. With reauthorization scheduled for next year, now is the time to address challenges of providing and paying for healthful meals to meet students’ needs. The latest issue of Choices, The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues addresses several dimensions of the school meals program that are important to the ongoing deliberations on school meal policies.
The first few months of life may help cement more than bonding for an infant. These important months may also imprint patterns of eating that can contribute to obesity later in life. Several studies have found that infant feeding practices, particularly breast-fed versus formula-fed options, can contribute to early weight gain, which in turn increases the risk of childhood weight issues. Infants fed formula, for example, tend to take in more energy and grow at a faster rate than breastfed infants in the first year. Formula-fed infants are also more likely to be overfed and may be less able to self-regulate their intake. What leads to this trend among formula-fed infants is unclear, but some have pointed to a mother’s attitudes, abilities, and beliefs about infant feeding as a possible reason for the distinctions. Katherine Kavanagh and Cary Springer, in their recent paper, explore mothers’ attitudes toward feeding patterns, and add a new possibility: how the mother prepares the formula—whether she concentrates or dilutes it. Providing this important research in an accessible and brief format, the SRDC is pleased to announce “Incomes or Attitudes? What Determines Whether Mothers in the WIC Program Dilute or Concentrate Baby Formula ” as a new release in its new Food Assistance and Nutrition Information Series as a part of the Economic Research Service's Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) program. Other briefs in this series can be found at the Series page.
The SRDC maintains a strong working partnership with the Economic Research Service, a collaboration that seeks to invest in innovative social sciences-based research addressing a variety of food assistance and nutrition issues in the South. This annual competitive grants program is known as the Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics, or RIDGE, Program.
The central focus of our Center’s RIDGE initiative is on food assistance-related issues having important bearing on the region’s vulnerable populations and communities, including the persistently poor, children and youth, single parent families, elderly and racial/ethnic minorities. We are interested in understanding the unique challenges facing individuals and families embedded in various spatial localities, be they in nonmetropolitan counties, rural places or low-wealth areas of the South.
The federal food stamp program helps approximately 15 million households (about 34 million individuals) put food on the table each year. At $39 billion in 2008, the budget of the program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is nearly two-thirds of the USDA’s food assistance budget. Not surprisingly, given the outlay, policymakers want to know its impact on participants’ nutrition and health. Steven Yen, Donald Bruce, and Lisa Jahns in their recent paper offer some insights on who benefits from the program and how. Specifically, they examine the relationship between SNAP participation and health and participants’ social and demographic characteristics. Providing this important research in an accessible and brief format, the SRDC is pleased to announce “Food Stamps Effectively Target Those Most in Need” as the latest release in its new Food Assistance and Nutrition Information Series as a part of the Economic Research Service's Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) program. Other briefs in this series can be found at the Series page.
SRDC Brief Discusses Food Deserts and Rural Seniors
Eating well is a critical component in a healthy lifestyle. A balanced diet can help prevent or ease chronic conditions such as heart disease, high cholesterol or blood pressure, or obesity. For seniors, who suffer more chronic conditions, diet can be an important (and less expensive) way to manage their health. However, choosing the right foods is only one part of eating well. Having access to quality foods at affordable prices is an often overlooked second component to a healthy diet. As Joseph Sharkey, Scott Horel, and Cassandra Johnson report in their recent study, seniors in rural communities find that getting to a well-stocked and affordable grocery store is frequently a challenge. Providing this important research in an accessible and brief format, the SRDC is pleased to announce the latest release in its new Food Assistance and Nutrition Information Series as a part of the Economic Research Service's Research Innovation and Development Grants in Economics (RIDGE) program. In addition to the new report “Rural Seniors Have Fewer Options for Healthy Diets [PDF], the first report "The South Does Not Make You Fat: A Study of Nutrition, Food Security, and Obesity" [PDF] is also available. View additional briefs and series by choosing Special Reports in the side menu.
