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School meal programs in the United States provide school meals freely, or at a subsidized price, to the children of low income families. These free or reduced meals have the potential to increase household food security, which can improve children's health and expand their educational opportunities.〔Bartfeld, Judith S. and Hong-Min Ahn. 2011. “The School Breakfast Program Strengthens Household Food Security Among Low-Income Households with Elementary School Children.” Journal of Nutrition 141(3):470-475〕 The most prevalent school meal program in the United States is the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), a federal program signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in 1946. It was historically looked upon to be the foundation for children’s nutritional health in the U.S. Serving over five billion lunches per year to qualified students, the main goal of the NSLP is to provide highly nutritious meals for children who may not otherwise have access to a proper diet. Additionally, these meals can feed children who live in food insecure households or who may for a variety of reasons have inadequate access to the necessary calories and nutrients for proper functioning. The NSLP was originally established as a “measure of national security, to safeguard the health and well-being of the nation’s children and to encourage domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities” (School Nutrition Association, 2012). In the six decades since its origin, the program has made a significant shift from not only preventing malnutrition, but also fighting childhood obesity. The NSLP is currently operating in over 100,000 public and nonprofit private schools and residential care institutions. In 2011 the program served low-cost or free lunches to over 31 million children per day. The NSLP and other food programs have been used to target children's health, particularly the health of children who are food insecure or at risk of malnutrition. More recently, nutritional guidelines have been developed to address issues of obesity. However, neither underweight children of the past nor the overweight children of the present have been that way solely because of individual choices, lack of nutrition education, or poor food choices. Rather, the nutrition of these children is tied directly to social and economic circumstances, such as family income and access to fresh foods, just as much as it is connected to individual choice factors.〔 Therefore, school meal programs provide an avenue by which these social and economic circumstances can be targeted to improve the nutritional content of children's food. Children's nutrition, moreover, has broader effects on students' educational achievements and behavior. == Children’s food security == In the United States, children’s food security is an important issue to address. Food insecurity includes both inadequate quantity and poor quality of food. Children need not just enough calories, but enough nutrients for proper growth and development.〔Cook, John T. and Deborah A. Frank. 2008. “Food Security, Poverty, and Human Development in the United States.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1136(1):193-209〕 This proper growth has broad health implications that can affect a variety of development outcomes. Children’s food security can impact children’s success in terms of educational outcomes, family life, and overall health. For example, marginal food insecurity has been linked to worse development trajectories for children, such as impaired social skills and reading development.〔 School meal programs have been implemented as a solution to alleviating issues with food insecurity. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「School meal programs in the United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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