Background: Children residing in households with very low food sufficiency (VLFS), where there is "often" not enough to eat, are more likely to experience academic, health, and psychological challenges. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a temporary universal free school meals (UFSM) policy was implemented, improving food access for children…

Breakfast skipping in young people has been strongly associated with reduced cognitive performance and school grades, attendance and disciplinary concerns, reduced health and well-being, and an increased risk of obesity. The school breakfast program (SBP) was implemented to improve nutrition and diet quality for all school-aged children and teens.…

This study investigates the implementation and impact of the community eligibility provision (CEP) in Maryland schools. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a federal school-based meal service option that allows high poverty schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost. CEP was introduced over the period 2015 to…

Household Food Insecurity (HFI) is a frequent challenge for children living in poverty that impacts social, emotional, and behavioral development. Federally assisted meal programs, such as the National School Breakfast Program, address HFI for students living in poverty through free or reduced-price breakfast. However, there are challenges for…

Free school meals provide support to vulnerable families in the Republic of Ireland. Funding is allocated as part of an anti-poverty strategy. An investigation was carried out to discover if the school meal could be used to provide nutritious scratch-cooked food as well as providing opportunities for increased socialisation and pedagogy. Food…

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and the School Breakfast Program (SBP) provide federal funding for school lunches and breakfasts served to nearly 30 million children daily in close to 94,000 schools. Because federal spending on NSLP and SBP depends in part on student participation in school meals, it may be of interest to Congress to…

Background: The National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs help to reduce food insecurity and improve nutrition. The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) enables high-poverty schools to offer breakfast and lunch at no cost to all students. This study examines associations between CEP and participation among students eligible for free or…

Background: Little is known about how school breakfast programs are associated with school attendance and academic performance. This study evaluated Dallas Independent School District's (DISD) breakfast after the bell (BATB) program that provides breakfast for both habitually tardy and non-tardy students on (1) academic performance and (2) student…

Big corporations and food service companies are making millions of dollars from public school meal programs, often to the detriment of students' health. Jennifer Gaddis explains how government policies and funding shortfalls have affected what is served is school cafeterias. Common cost-cutting measures include serving cheap and easy-to-prepare…

Background: Adolescents frequently miss breakfast which may impact cognitive, academic, and health outcomes. This analysis describes the effect of a trial to assess school level changes to increase breakfast consumption on grade point average (GPA). Methods: Sixteen rural Minnesota high schools were randomized to a policy and environmental change…

Background: Many Australian primary schools have established school breakfast clubs (SBCs) to address concerns about children arriving at school hungry and the subsequent impact on learning but their effectiveness is uncertain. This study aimed to identify the perceived benefits, impacts, operational practices, and challenges of running SBCs.…

Background: We assessed the cost-effectiveness and student outcomes related to providing breakfast in the classroom (BIC) setting versus breakfast in the traditional school cafeteria (Cafe). Methods: The sample included 2906 African American and Hispanic students attending urban elementary and middle schools in a city in the Northeastern United…

This paper examines whether schoolwide free meals affect disciplinary outcomes, focusing on the use of suspensions. Under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), schools serving sufficiently high-poverty populations may enroll their entire student bodies in free lunch and breakfast programs, extending free meals to some students who would not…

The Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) program was launched as an effort to address the loss of access to free and reduced-price school meals due to widespread school closures at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As schools reopened in a shifting mix of fully virtual, hybrid, and in-person formats and families lacked consistent access…

During the U.S. post-WWII recovery, appropriations for school lunch became codified in the 1946 National School Lunch Act, fueling program growth in the baby boom era to 18.9 million participating children by 1967, or about 42 percent of 45 million enrolled students. Then, in 1968, two reports funded by the Field Foundation of New York highlighted…