Persuasive Essay On School Lunch Program

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) was authorized in 1946 through the National School Lunch Act making it the oldest of all child nutrition and food assistance programs. The reason Congress initiated this program was because it was a “measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the nation’s children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food” (Stillman 451). The NSLP set the standards for the foods that were offered and the goal of the meal pattern was to provide at least one-third of the recommended dietary allowances for children over the period of one week. In the 1900’s, the NSLP went through a transformation because though they were providing one-third of the RDA for many

Furthermore, less than 5 percent of the 515 schools sampled offered school lunches that were close to the Dietary Guideline’s recommendations. One of the biggest advocates of the NSLP transformation was Ellen Haas (USDA’s assistant secretary) (Stillman 454). Ms. Haas wanted to take the school lunch reform message directly to the public, health professionals, and consumer advocates who have supported her in previous years. The message for school lunch reform was taken to the public in a series of public hearings focusing on “Nutrition Objectives for School Meals,” which were held in 4 cities – Atlanta, L.A, Michigan, and Washington D.C – in 1993. These public hearings were a great success and brought further attention and support for school lunch reformation. On November 2, 1993, Senator Patrick Leachy (chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Health for Children Act) introduced S.1614. S.1614 was a bill that was designed to improve child nutrition programs by making them conform to the Dietary guidelines (Stillman