By Dr. Chris Magryta

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 has finally passed. The good news is that it passed. The bad news is it took too many years to provide some meaningful help to the school kitchens and our children’s stomachs. What remains to be seen over the next few years is, will it go far enough? Will our children’s waist lines decrease and will they feel better and get healthier. Who knows?
Here are the highlights of a bill that I am passionate about.
According to a U.S. House of Representatives blog site, the four main provisions of the bill are increased access, increased focus on nutrition quality and children’s health, improved program management and program integrity, fully paid for — at no cost to taxpayers.
Part 1 looks at access. There are increases in the number of children enrolled in the school meals programs by using Medicaid data to directly certify eligible children. Using census data to determine school-wide income eligibility enhances universal meal access for eligible children in high poverty communities.[0xa0]The act provides more meals for at-risk children nationwide. This provision will provide an additional 21 million meals annually.[0xa0]
Part 2 improves the nutritional quality of school meals by increasing the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches for districts that comply with federal nutrition standards. An additional 6 cents per meal will be the first real reimbursement rate increase in over 30 years.
The act removes junk food from schools by applying nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools. It amazes me that here we are in 2010 finally addressing an issue that any common person would understand and the government has failed to deal with for years.
We will see the promotion of nutrition and wellness in childcare settings by establishing nutrition requirements for the USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP).
We will see more children connected to healthy produce from local farms by helping communities establish farm-to-school networks, create school gardens and use more local foods in cafeterias with $40 million in mandatory funding.[0xa0]This is probably one of the best provisions for Rowan County and our children. I applaud the desire to support local farmers and our economy.
The act strengthens local school wellness policies by updating existing requirements, increasing transparency, providing opportunities for community involvement and compliance measurements.
We will see supports put in place to encourage breastfeeding for low-income women. This will occur by supporting data collection in the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and permanently authorizing performance bonuses for exemplary breastfeeding practices at WIC clinics and agencies.
Part 3 supports schools’ food service budgets by ensuring charges to school foodservice accounts are only for allowable expenses. It supports a skilled workforce by establishing professional standards and training opportunities for school food service providers. It streamlines program administration by giving CACFP providers greater flexibility with their administrative funds and eliminating duplicative paperwork requirements and wasteful monitoring practices.[0xa0]
Importantly, we will see improvements in food safety requirements for school meals by improving recall procedures and extending existing FDA Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points requirements to all places where school meals are prepared or served. However, the bigger issue still is lack of oversight from the federal government that has even caused foreign countries to not purchase our foods secondary to poor production and quality standards. Watch the movie “Food, Inc.” or read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” for a little perspective.
A recent article in the Huffington Post noted, “Last week the Humane Society of the United States released a grisly report and undercover video on the disgusting treatment of pregnant sows at one of its industrial swine facilities in Virginia. And Russia has announced it will not buy pork products from the company’s Smithfield, Va., plant, because they are tainted with ‘residue and pathogen issues.’ ” I, for one, am saddened by the continued and frequent reports of the low quality of our mass produced food and how this can affect our health.
Part 4 saves $1 billion over 10 years by extending a provision that allows the Secretary of Agriculture to count commodities purchased for market stabilization toward the required level of federal support (in the form of commodity foods) for the National School Lunch Program. It saves approximately $1.3 billion over 10 years by restructuring nutrition education in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) into a new grant program that distributes federal funds by formula to the states.[0xa0]Finally, it saves approximately $2.2 billion over 10 years by eliminating a temporary SNAP benefit increase provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).[0xa0][0xa0][0xa0] [0xa0]
Our best chance for meaningful change in our schools is through part 2. Changing the nutritional quality of the food is the obvious first step towards progress. Libby Post and her team at the Rowan-Salisbury School System have done much already. Yet, federal roadblocks have stymied further progress. This act will hopefully allow us to really impact every meal every day. Thank those governmental officials that voted for this change whether they are for your party or not. It is time that decisions are made for our children’s benefit regardless of party affiliation or ideology. Some issues do not need rocket science to understand or believe in. This is one of those. Our kids need to eat better quality food – period.
Next time you write to a congressman, please tell him or her that you would like subsidies changed to encourage fresh fruits and vegetables and not corn, soy or wheat. That single decision will forever change the landscape from poor quality cheap food to high quality cheap food.
Dr. Chris Magryta is a pediatrician with Salisbury Pediatric Associates.