Free Custom «School Lunch Program» Essay Paper

The federal government requires allpublicand non-profit private schools in the USA toservenutritious lunch to school-going children. It has undertaken various testing, evaluations and development that has led to improved nutrition. This program dates more than hundred years. The combined feeding and teaching program in Munich Germany is the earliest traced in history. Benjamin Thompson initiated the program in 1790 to feed the hungry, homeless children.

The landmark of this program was in 1946 when President Harry Truman was involved in signing the National School Lunch Act in 1946 and fully introduced the program into the Government system. He began the program to ensure national security. He observed that there were a lot of young men rejected from joining the World War II due to poor health andchildhoodmalnutrition. Secondly, the program meant to encourageconsumptionof local foodstuffs produced by farmers (Gunderson, 2011).

Itslegislationbegan sometimes in 1942 with amendment of the Agricultural Act. The Amendments authorized the spending of federal funds on school lunch and school milk programs. In the following year, there was a further improvement on the program where the 78th Congress authorized additionalfundinto the program. An extra $50 million topped up theprevious$50 million for the year 1945-1946. The program expandedmoderatelythat, by the end of 1946, it served about 7 million children in more than 45,120 schools. This was more than 25 percent increase in the number of children covered by the program in just one year (Gunderson, 2011).

 

Type of service

Type of assignment

Title of your paper *

Academic level

Pages

Timeframe

Spacing

Currency

  Order now

In 1946, the 79th congress recognized the importance and theneedof a quick expansion of the program. It formed legislation togivetheinitiativea permanent status and further authorize the expenditure on the program. The Congress enacted the program under the National School Lunch Act. The Act clearly defines thepurposeof the Act, which is tosafeguardthe health of the children as a measure of national security and encourage local consumption of local agricultural products.

A further legislation in 1966 allowed for expansion of the program. The Child Nutrition Act integrated the Special Milk Program into the NLPS. Later, the Federal Government under Section 13 of the Nutrition Act authorized the centralization of all school food services. Itputtherunningof the program under one agency. This was necessary toallowfor standardization of all matters related to the program such as, management, supervision, nutrition, and sanitation (Gunderson, 2011).

The benefits of the program are many. A recent study by the Iowa State University stated that the program improves the health of children from poor families (Iowa State University, 2011). The researchers found out that the program eliminated situations of food insecurity among children. They found thisfindingafter sampling 2,693 children from low income households between 6 and 17 years who benefited from the program. Apart from improving the healthylivingby 3.8 percent, they report that the rate of obesity and poor general health went down to 17 and 29 percent respectively (Iowa State University, 2011). These findings indicate that the program meets itspurpose. Currently, more than 32 million children have an assurance of healthy, nutritious meals.

The major challenge on the guidelines in the program is provision of quality andsafetyof the food. A recent report indicated that the microbialqualityof beef and chicken in the school lunch program was much lower than that in the local restaurants. The agency in charge has themandateto review guidelines forrigorouschecking forthe presenceof pathogenic organisms.