Improving Child Nutrition

Nutritious food helps children grow up healthy and ready to learn and sets the stage for better lifetime health. Long-standing evidence documents the developmental and cognitive benefits of adequate nutrition. Providing nutritious food for children also offers marketing opportunities for U.S. farmers.
 
Recognizing these connections, Congress enacted the National School Lunch Act in 1946 “to safeguard the health and well-being of the nation’s children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food.” The National School Lunch Program now serves 31 million U.S. children daily in more than 101,000 elementary and secondary schools. Additional federal-state programs include the School Breakfast Program in more than 88,000 schools, serving 11 million children daily; summer food service; after-school nutrition; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children; and child and adult care programs.