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Schools are an important setting for addressing childhood obesity. A substantial portion of school-aged children’s daily food and caloric intake occurs within the school and after-school environment. About 30 million school-aged children consume school lunches every day, and almost 75% (21.8 million) of these children receive free or reduced-price lunches. Research in this area aims to understand how school and after-school food policies and environments can help improve the nutritional quality of the school meal environment, promote healthy weight status, and reduce nutritional disparities.
Research & Publications See all
November 2022
Promising Strategies to Increase Student Participation in School Meals
School meal programs play a critical role in feeding children. Meals served in school are generally of better nutritional quality than those that students bring from home and have been linked to improved academic performance and household food security. The aim of this research brief is to highlight and summarize rigorous evidence from a new More
August 2022
Costs, Reach, and Benefits of COVID-19 Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer and Grab-and-Go School Meals for Ensuring Youths’ Access to Food During School Closures
School meals are associated with improved nutrition and health for millions of US children, but school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted children’s access to school meals. Two policy approaches, the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program, which provided the cash value of missed meals directly to families on debit-like cards to use for More
August 2022
Pandemic-EBT and Grab-and-Go School Meals: Costs, reach, and benefits of two approaches to feeding children during school closures — Lessons from COVID-19 responses
COVID-related school closures across the United States in spring 2020 disrupted the school meal programs that provide critical access to healthy food for millions of children — including children in elementary and middle school and adolescents in high school — from households with low incomes, leading to increased food insecurity. The United States Department of More
July 2022
Reducing Student Exposure to Digital Food and Beverage Marketing
Digital marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children and adolescents is pervasive and undermines healthy eating. During the COVID-19 pandemic, students’ time spent online for both recreation and school using educational technology doubled from 3.8 to 7.7 hours per day for 12- to13-year-olds, and racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities widened with children of color More