School Lunch Politics (48 page)

117. In 1995 the USDA still required school lunches to provide one-third of a child's RDA for protein, vitamins A and C, iron, calcium, and calories over the course of a week. For the first time, however, the standards specified that no more than 30% of calories come from fat and no more than 10% from saturated fat. Schools had until the 1996–97 school year to alter their menus, but waivers of this requirement could be granted. See Charlene Price and Betsey Kuhn, “Public and Private Efforts for the National School Lunch Program,”
Food Review,
May August 1996, p. 52.

118. Ibid., 53–54.

119. See Ward Sinclair, “School Lunches Flunk GAO Nutrition Test,” and Richard Cohen, “Reagan's Life Style Contradicts Policies,” both in
Washington Post,
September 15, 1981; Mary Thornton and Martin Schram, “U.S. Holds the Ketchup in Schools: Hold the Pickles, Hold the Relish, Hold the New School Lunch Regs,”
Washington Post,
September 26, 1981; “Ketchup Set to Pour Again in School Lunch Rules,”
Washington Post,
October 30, 1981.

120. Ibid.

121. “Notes on People,” NYT, September 36, 1981.

122. Don Paarlberg,
Farm and Food Policy: Issues of the 1980s
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980), p. 105. Also see “History of NSLP.”
Http://USDA.gov
.

123. “U.S. Acts to Shrink School Lunch Size in Economy Move,” NYT, September 5, 1981.

124. “School Food: New Intent,” NYT, September 14, 1981.

E
PILOGUE
. F
AST
F
OOD AND
P
OOR
C
HILDREN

1. See ASFSA “Your Child Nutrition eSource,”
www.asfsa.org/newsroom/sfsnews/legupdate0603.asp
.

2. Peter H. Rossi,
Feeding the Poor: Assessing Federal Food Aid
(Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1998), 7. The lunch program cost in 1947 was $70 million; 1950, $119.7 million; 1960, $225.8 million; 1970, $565.5 million; 1975, $1.7 billion; 1980, $3.2 billion; 1973, $3.4 billion; and 1990, $3.7 billion. See USDA “Nutrition Program Facts,” Food and Nutrition Service, National School Lunch Program.

3. Masao Matsumoto, “The National School Lunch Program Serves 24 Million Daily,”
Food Review,
October-December 1992.

4. School lunch participation was 7.1 million in 1946; 1970, 22 million; 1980, 27 million; 1990, 24 million (reflecting Reagan era cuts); and 2003, 28.4 million (last data available). USDA “Nutrition Program Facts,” Food and Nutrition Service, National School Lunch Program.

5. “Child Nutrition Programs: Issues for the 101st Congress,”
School Food Service Research Review
13, no. 1 (1989): 35–39.

6. “Half of Black Households Used School Lunch Program in 1980,”
New York Times
(hereafter, NYT), November 26, 1981. The article also notes that the number of black households getting food stamps rose 11%, to 2.4 million, while recipients among white households rose by 12%, to 4.2 million. The number of Hispanic households was 700,000, or an increase of 17%. Overall, 6.8 million households got stamps, or about 8% of all households.

7. Constance Newman and Katherine Ralston, “Profiles of Participants in the National School Lunch Program: Data from Two National Surveys,” United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Economic Information Bulletin No. 17, August 2006 (Electronic Report), iii, 5, 9.

8. Saba Sultana Brelvi, “Current Policy Trends in the National School Lunch Program,” Honors Thesis, Health and Society Department, Brown University, May 1, 1995 p. 15. Thanks to Ellen Messer for this reference. Also see Steven M. Lutz and Jay Hirschman, “School Lunch Reform: Minimal Market Impacts from Providing Healthier Meals,”
Food Review,
January-April, 1998, p. 31.

9. Matsumoto, “The National School Lunch Program.”

10. Ibid.

11. BarryYeoman, “Unhappy Meals,”
Mother Jones
(January/February 2003)
http://www.motherjones.com
. The proposed 2007 farm bill for the first time guaranteed USDA purchase not only of “surplus” commodities but of “specialty crops” as well. These new crops included fruits and vegetables that would satisfy “new concerns about nutrition in the federally funded school meals program.” “To Subsidize Actual Food,”
Chicago Tribune,
March 16, 2007.

12.
http://www.asfsa.org/who/history.html
. Also see Ron Haskins, “The School Lunch Lobby,” Education Next, The Hoover Institution,
http://www.educationnext.org
.

13. The federal school lunch financing system remained arcane and complex. Schools received federal cash reimbursements at different levels for free, reducedprice, and full-price meals. In addition, schools could purchase USDA surplus commodities called “entitlement foods.” These were distributed according to the number of meals served.

14. See, e.g., example,
http://www.oseda.missouri.edu/kidcnt/pctfrln.html
. This Web site of the Missouri education department stipulated that the percentage of students enrolled for free or reduced-price lunch is a measure to be used “to approximate the percent of children living in poverty, a census measure that is only available every ten years. Students whose families have incomes below 130% of the poverty line are eligible for free lunches through the National School Lunch Program.” In 1994 over one-third of Missouri students were enrolled in the school lunch program.

15. “Schools Find New Route to Diversity,”
Chicago Tribune,
January 28, 2002.

16. Melissa Alexander, “Tortillas Become Staple Fare in Nation's Public schools,”
Milling and Baking News,
June 24, 1997,
http://www.bakingbusiness.com
.

17. Charlene Price and Betsy Kuhn, “Public and Private Efforts for the National School Lunch Program,”
Children's Diets
(May-August 1996): 54.

18.
Http://www.asfsa.org/who/history.htm
.

19. Sharon Palmer, “Making the Grade with School-Lunch Programs,”
Food Product Design: Foodservice Annual,
November 2002.

20. Price and Kuhn, “Public and Private Efforts,” 55.

21. “Is Your Kid Failing Lunch?”
Consumer Reports,
September 1998, p. 50.

22. Ibid., 52. The report found that fast-food brands were offered in 13% of the nation's schools.

23. A few schools had already contracted with McDonald's during the 1970s, but it was not until the 1990s that fast-food franchises became commonplace in school cafeterias.

24. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Fact Sheet: Food Service,” CDC School Health Policies and Programs Study, 2000; and Alexander, “Tortillas Become Staple Fare.”

25. Price and Kuhn, “Public and Private Efforts,” 56.

26. Melissa Alexander, “Pizza in the School Lunch Program,”
Milling and Baking News,
June 18, 1996,
http://bakingbusiness.com
.

27. Ibid.

28. Jane E. Brody, “Personal Health; Schools Teach 3 C's: Candy, Cookies, and Chips,” NYT, September 24, 2002; and Yeoman, “Unhappy Meals.”

29. Price and Kuhn, “Public and Private Efforts,” 55.

30. “Apricot Archive,” Apricot Producers of California, vol. 1, December 2004,
http://www.apricotproducers.come/apricotArchive1.htm
.

31. Saba Brelvi, “Current Policy Trends,” 19.

32. Price and Kuhn, “Public and Private Efforts,” 57.

33. Alexander, “Pizza in the School Lunch Program.”

34. Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, “School Lunch Report Card,” August 2004, pp. 1–2
www.prcm.org
.

35. Alexander, “Pizza in the School Lunch Program.” Chicken nuggets come in second in popularity.

36. Ibid.

37. Alexander, “Tortillas Become Staple Fare.”

38. Stephen Glass, “Happy Meals: When Lunch Subsidies Are Chopped, Kids Eat Better,”
Policy Review,
Summer 1995,
http://www.policyreview.org
.

39. Ibid.

40. For Kramer's criticism, see United States Congress, Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry,
Hearings, School Lunch and Child Nutrition Programs,
91st Cong., 1st. Sess., September 29–October 1, 1969, p. 226.

41. Glass, “Happy Meals.”

42. Ibid.

43. “History of the National School Lunch Program,”
http://USDA.gov
; and Price and Kuhn, “Public and Private Effects,” 54.

44. “First CN Reauthorization Hearing Held in House,” ASFSA, Your Child Nutrition eSource, July 19, 2003,
www.asfsa.org/newsroom/sfnews/hrgonereauth.asp
.

45. Robert G. St. Pierre and Michael J. Puma, “Controlling Federal Expenditures in the National School Lunch Program: The Relationship between Changes in Household Eligibility and Federal Policy,”
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
11, no. 1 (Winter 1992); 42–57.

46. See, e.g., “Sen. Dole Introduces Legislation to Increase Access to School Meals,” Your Child Nutrition eSource, August 1, 2003,
http://www.asfsa.org/newsroom/sfnews/doleleg.asp
, and Haskins, “The School Lunch Lobby.”

47. Susan Davis Gryder, “Junk Food Wars,”
School Foodservice Nutrition,
Your Child Nutrition eSource, August 2003,
http://member.asfsa.org/sfnarchives/0308/junkfood.asp
.

48. See Kim Severson, “L.A. Schools to Stop Soda Sales,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
August 28, 2002, and “Food in the News: Oakland Schools Ban Vending Machine Junk Food,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
January 16, 2002. This reported estimated that vending machines yielded about $39,000 for each high school and $14,000 for middle schools.

49. USDA, “Foods Sold in Competition with USDA School Meal Programs: A Report to Congress,” January 12, 2001,
www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/CompetitiveFoods
.

50. The notion that the lunch program had been conceived of for all children was part of its lore. See, e.g., “Child Nutrition Programs: Issues for the 101st Congress”; “The school lunch program had been conceived in 1946 as a broadbased nutrition program for all children, and over the years this goal had been consistently reaffirmed by congress. Additionally, there was philosophical objection to what was viewed as turning child nutrition programs into welfare (incometested) programs” (27).

51. See Severson, “L.A. Schools to Stop Soda Sales” and “Food in the News,” and Chris Kenning, “Board to Vote on Limiting School Snacks,”
Louisville Cou-
rier-Journal,
August 26, 2002; “Give Soda Machines the Can,”
USA Today,
August 5, 2002.

52. USDA, “Foods Sold in Competition with USDA School Meal Programs.”

53. Amanda Bower, “Retooling School Lunch,”
Time,
June 11, 2006. Also see “Food Joins Academic Menu in Berkeley School District,”
San Francisco Chroni-
cle, August 29, 2004, and “‘Delicious Revolution' Honored,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
August 4, 1998.

54. “Food Joins Academic Menu in Berkeley School District.”

55. See, e.g., “Lisa Belkin, “The School-Lunch Test,”
New York Times Magazine,
August 20, 2006. Belkin describes project HOPS (Healthier Options for Public Schoolchildren) funded by the Agatston Research Foundation (created by Dr. Arthur Agatston, of South Beach Diet fame). The foundation donated money to schools to transform their lunch menus. Funds from Agatston made up the difference between government reimbursements and the cost of fresh and organic ingredients.

56. United States Congress, Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, 90th Cong., 2nd Sess., and 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 1968–69, Part 10, p. 3218. Quote is from Cook County, Illinois, public aid nutritionist.

Index

 

 

 

 

Abel, Mary Hinman

Abernathy, Ralph

Addams, Jane

advertising, food-industry

Agatston Research Foundation

Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933)

agricultural lobby

agricultural policy: New Deal; post-World War II

Aid to Dependent Children

Alabama

Aladdin Slow Cooker

Altschul, Aaron M.

American Association of University Women

“American diet,”

American Dietetics Association

American Farm Bureau Federation

American Food Research Institute (Stanford)

American Home Economics Association

Americanization

American Parents Committee

American Samoa

American School Food Service Association (ASFSA)

Anderson, Jack

Andresen, August

Andrews, Glenn

anticommunism

anti-hunger movement

anti-poverty movement

Apple, Rima

application process, for free-lunch program

Aramark

Arends, Leslie

Arizona

Arkansas

Armour

army rations

army recruits, and malnutrition

Ashby, Rodney

Atkinson, Edward

Atwater, Wilbur O.

Automatic Retailers of America

bag lunches

“balanced meal,”

Baldwin, Sidney

Baldwin-Wood scale

behavior modification, for schoolchildren

Belasco, Warren

Belkin, Lisa

Bender, George Harrison

Benedict, Ruth

Benson, Ezra Taft

Bentley, Amy

Berenson, Anna

Berlage, Nancy K.

Black Panther Party

Block, John R.

body norms, gendered/racialized

Boldurn, Dr. Charles

Boston public schools

Bradley, Charles

brand loyalty

Breckinridge, Sophonisba

Brinkley, Alan

Brunty, Chester

Buffalo, New York, school district

Burdick, Quentin

Burnett, John

Butz, Earl

Califano, Joseph

California