The USDA spends $13.7 billion annually on school food, about 10 percent of its budget. But do school food programs improve children’s diets? A new study says yes, especially for low-income students who benefit from free and reduced-price lunch.
The study, published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, looked for the first time at how school meals affect the diets of students in light of what they are eating at home. This makes sense because a child who eats unhealthy food at home may benefit more from school food than one who eats a diet full of fruits and vegetables. Previous studies had looked at the average effects of school food on various populations and found mixed results depending on the nutrient, age, etc.
The report comes as Congressional Republicans are promising, once again, to roll back higher nutrition standards backed by First Lady Michelle Obama and implemented in 2010 as part of the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act. “The regulations have proven to be burdensome and unworkable for schools to implement,” the House Freedom Caucus stated in a 23-page document outlining changes it wants the Trump administration to review during its first 100 days. This, despite the fact that the USDA says that nearly all schools are now in compliance with the rules.
Author Travis Smith, a professor at the University of Georgia, examined data from 2005 to 2010—before the passage of the upgraded standards, which mandated more whole grains, fruits and vegetables, among other things—to see whether substituting a school meal for food from home affected student scores on the Healthy Eating Index (HEI).
On average, children eating school food saw their scores (out of a possible 100) increase .93 points, or 1.74 percent. But students in the bottom quartile of HEI scores saw dietary quality improve two to three times as much (2.1 to 2.7 points), while the most food-insecure students saw increases of 3.3 to 6.4 points, as high as six times the average.
Meanwhile, students with higher scores for diet quality saw negative but mostly insignificant impacts to their scores.
What does this all mean? Using studies that have correlated HEI scores with relative risk for adverse health, Smith estimates that a one-point increase in HEI corresponds to a 0.8-percent decrease in the risk of chronic disease. From a policy perspective, Smith suggests that school meals are “fertile ground” for improving children’s diets.
Jane Black is a Washington, D.C.-based food writer who covers food politics, healthy eating and sustainable agriculture.