What Is The Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill?

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 authorizes funding for federal school meal and child nutrition programs and increases to healthy food for low-income children. The bill that reauthorizes these programs is often referred to by shorthand as the child nutrition reauthorization bill. This particular bill reauthorizes child nutrition programs for five year and includes $4.5 Billion in new funding for these programs over 10 years. Many of the programs featured in the Act do not have a specific expiration date, but Congress is periodically required to review and reauthorize funding. This reauthorization presents an important opportunity to strengthen programs to address more effectively the needs of our nation’s children and young adults.

WHAT DOES IT DO?

Improves Nutrition and Focuses on Reducing Childhood Obesity

• Gives USDA the authority to set nutritional standards for all foods regularly sold in schools during the school day, including vending machines, the “ala carte” lunch lines, and school stores.
• Provides additional funding to schools that meet updated nutritional standards for federally-subsidized lunches. This is an historic investment, the first real reimbursement rate increase in over 30 years.
• Helps communities establish local farm to school networks, create school gardens, and ensures that more local foods are used in the school setting.
• Builds on USDA work to improve nutritional quality of commodity foods that schools receive from USDA and use in their breakfast and lunch programs.
• Expands access to drinking water in schools, particularly during meal times.
• Sets basic standards for school wellness policies including goals for nutrition promotion and education and physical activity, while still permitting local flexibility to tailor the policies to their particular needs.

Increases Access

• Increases number of eligible children enrolled in school meal programs by approximately 115,000 students by using Medicaid data to directly certify children who meet income requirements.
• Helps certify an average additional 4,500 students per year to receive school meals by setting benchmarks for states to improve the certification process.
• Allows more universal meal access for eligible students in high poverty communities by eliminating paper applications and using census data to determine school-wide income eligibility.
• Expands USDA authority to support meals served to at-risk children in after school programs

Increases Program Monitoring and Integrity

• Requires school districts to be audited every three years to improve compliance with nutritional standards.
• Requires schools to make information more readily available to parents about the nutritional quality of meals.
• Provides training and technical assistance for school food service providers.

WHAT IS THE TIME  FRAME?

USDA will work with states,  school districts, and neighborhoods to implement the provisions of the bill and Americans will start to see the changes in their communities over time. At this moment, implementation guidelines are still being developed and updates will come in the near future. Many groups are in the “comment” phase of a policy as it is being developed and many more recommendations and requirements will be published in the near future.