Around the end of March, headlines started swirling in the New York City area about whether or not NYC schools would close down due to the coronavirus – and if so, when. At this point, many surrounding towns and schools had already announced distance learning for the near future and shut down schools. Why was there so much hesitation to close down one of the largest school systems in the country? The answer NYC Mayor de Blasio provided was that many families in the city relied on school provided meals to feed their children.
Clearly a compromise was reached, as NYC schools, along with the vast majority of schools nationwide, shut down for the remainder of the school year. But de Blasio points out a key aspect of education that is not spoken about enough – food insecurity among students and the role that schools often take on to provide meals.
Relationship Between Food Security and Education
Why should we talk about food security in relation to education? Most policymakers in education focus on a number of factors in relation to a child’s school performance, such as parent education, socioeconomic status, teacher quality, etc. However, food security is an important and often overlooked aspect. If a child is not getting the right food to meet their nutritional standards and/or doesn’t know where or when their next meal is coming from, how can they be expected to perform in school?
Food insecurity has been linked to harming a child’s social, cognitive, and physical development. Children in food insecure households often suffer from more stomaches, headaches, and other common illnesses that keep them home from school or cause difficulty paying attention in class.
Specifically for very young children, food insecurity can have long-lasting effects on development. Nutrition deficiencies, such as iron deficiencies, can alter a child’s brain and memory capacity for as long as ten years after the deficiency has been corrected. This can impair young student’s reading abilities and make them more likely to have to repeat a grade due to struggling academically. These deficiencies can also harm their social abilities, leading them to struggle to make friends compared to their peers.
These are just a few of the examples of the harm food insecurity can have on young children’s development and ability to perform in school. School food and nutrition programs help, and we have seen positive results from these programs. This is why it is of paramount importance that these programs continue to be funded–especially during times of economic uncertainty, such as the current pandemic.
National Free and Reduced Lunch Program
About one in five children in the United States are in households without secure access to food. One way this is addressed is through the National School Lunch Program, which administers funds from states to districts. Schools are given reimbursements for meals and snacks provided, given that they meet certain nutrition qualifications. There are two levels: free and reduced lunch. Children in households making below 130 percent of the poverty line qualify for free meals (or those on certain other benefit programs), while children in households making between 130 and 185 percent of the poverty line qualify for reduced meals. In 2018 alone, these benefits provided over 4.8 billion meals to students nationwide.
In extreme cases, these school lunches account for the majority of calories a child gets a day, highlighting just how important these meals are to children and the danger of them not being able to obtain a proper meal without school.
School Lunch in the Summer
The United States Department of Agriculture also has a Summer Food Service program available for children on free and reduced lunch to have access to nutritious meals over the summer. However, due to limited accessibility and awareness, a significantly smaller portion of students get their meals during this time. Programs such as the Feeding America Network and local food banks have stepped in to attempt to minimize this gap with supplementary interventions to accommodate these children and make food more accessible for them.
School Lunch During Coronavirus
Due to coronavirus, with many students being unable to attend school, a number of programs were put in place to ensure children could still get access to meals. Especially during this time of uncertainty and high levels of unemployment due to COVID-19 related layoffs, families are more reliant than ever on schools to provide food for their children.
In New York City, 435 sites were introduced for grab-and-go pick up. Here, families could pick up breakfast, lunch, and dinner free of charge to feed their entire family. In early April, the program was expanded to include any adults as well, even those without children, to ensure everyone had access to meals. Similar feeding sites are also in place in other cities such as San Francisco and Chicago to provide easy and free access to food. Even smaller districts have been offering grab-and-go meals for students with ranging criteria for qualification depending on free-and-reduced lunch funding for the district and levels of accessibility.
School lunch programs are undoubtedly an essential element of providing healthy and nutritious meals for children, some of whom would otherwise not have access to any food at all. Today more than ever food insecurity requires greater awareness and discussion as a childhood health issue which must be addressed. Help support your local food banks, or donate to Feeding America to help children have proper access to meals.
As recently as this past Monday, the school lunch program in Chicago was shut down due to the unrest in the city as a result of the protests. After widespread criticism, Chicago Public Schools went back to handing out meals on Tuesday. This is a critical example of the power of one’s voice and how important is it to advocate for children and speak to your elected officials to make sure children have reliable access to meals.
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