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Equitable Food Access in Schools
In-school access to healthy, nutritious meals can increase attendance, health and educational outcomes for youth. For many children, school is their only reliable source of food. With half of all K-12 public school students eligible for free or reduced price meals, strengthening the health of and expanding access to school meal programs is vital to student success and well-being.
Nearly 15% of U.S. children live in a food-insecure household. Despite this, strict federal guidelines allow for only students from homes with incomes below 130 percent of the federal poverty line to be eligible for free school meals. This leaves many struggling families ineligible to access free meals and required to pay for either reduced or full-price school meals for their children. Expanding programs that offer free school meals to all can promote student health and success while also alleviating a financial burden for many families. Universal free meals programs, like the one recently implemented in California, provide free meals to all students regardless of income level. These programs are particularly well-positioned to both provide nutritious food and address the stigma associated with free meals by making them available to all.
Stigma around free meals is a barrier to receiving school-provided breakfast or lunch. Research has found that as many as one in three eligible students have skipped free lunch in order to avoid feelings of shame. As a result, this stigma perpetuates lower school meal participation rate.
This week’s resources highlight the importance of implementing comprehensive, nutritious school meal programs to better support the health of all students and help them reach their full potential. School health partners can use these resources to learn how to implement, expand, and assess participation in universal free meal program.
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