School meal programs in the United States

School meal programs in the United States provide school meals free of charge, or at a government-subsidized price, to students from low-income families. These free or subsidized meals have the potential to increase household food security, which can improve children's health and expand their educational opportunities.

The biggest school meal program in the United States is the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), which was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in 1946. Its purpose is to prevent malnutrition and provide a foundation for good nutritional health. The text of the National School Lunch Act, which established the program, called it a "measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the nation's children and to encourage domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities".

The NSLP currently operates in more than 100,000 public schools, nonprofit private schools, and residential care institutions. It provides more than 5 billion low-cost or free lunches per year to eligible students, with the goal of ensuring nutritious meals for children who might not otherwise have access to a proper diet. In 2012, it served more than 31 million children per day.

Food insecurity includes both inadequate quantity and inadequate quality of food. Children need not just enough calories, but also enough nutrients for proper growth and development, and improper or stunted growth can have a variety of medical and developmental implications. Food insecurity and malnutrition can affect children's educational outcomes, family life, and overall health. It has been linked to worse development outcomes for children, such as impaired social and reading skills.

Food insecurity has risen in recent years. Between 2007 and 2008, the rate in the U.S. increased from 11.1 percent to 14.6 percent, the largest annual increase since researchers began tracking the rate in the mid-1990s. Among households with children, food insecurity increased from 15.8 percent to 21 percent during that period.

Four million American children "experience prolonged periodic food insufficiency and hunger each year", which amounts to 8 percent of children under the age of 12. An additional 21 percent are at risk.

Food insecurity affects the health and well-being of children in several ways. It is a major threat to "growth, health, cognitive, and behavioral potential", and most behavioral, emotional, and academic problems are more prevalent among hungry children than non-hungry children. Food insecurity is linked to lower math scores, trouble getting along with peers, poor health, and more frequent illness. A study by researchers at the Boston University School of Medicine found that children aged 6–11 who came from food-insecure homes had lower arithmetic scores, were more likely to have repeated a grade or seen a therapist, and had more difficulty getting along with peers than similar children in food-secure homes. Hungry children are much more likely to have clinical levels of psychosocial dysfunction, and they show more anxious, irritable, aggressive, and oppositional behaviors than peers whose families are low-income but food-secure.

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