President Obama signed into law the new Childhood Nutrition bill today, which increases the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches by 6 cents, increases the number of meals served through schools, and makes those meals healthier.
Over at the blog Obama's Foodorama, they're saying, "The bill is without question the most historic child nutrition legislation to emerge from this or any other administration in decades." Well, maybe, but only because the act hadn't been substantially changed in many years. It's a necessary bill that makes modest but important changes to the ways in which we feed children at school, and first lady Michelle Obama's anti-obesity initiative, of which this is a part, addresses a long-standing problem of poor nutrition and inactivity for children.
But whether this is a real game changer remains to be seen, and overall food policy in the country has favored the sorts of systems school-lunch administrators simply succumbed to; processed food is cheaper and easier than more nutritious fresh food, and fresh food is not only more expensive but more costly and time-consuming to prepare. American families are hungry because they don't make enough to live on, very few grocery store chains -- if families are lucky enough to have access to them -- have control of most markets, and food-stamp benefits remain too low. Good thing, then, that the childhood nutrition bill's cost was partly offset by ending an increase in food-stamp funding early.
-- Monica Potts
