Published: June 2021

Publisher: Healthy Eating Research

See more related research

Share


Schools play a vital role in promoting children’s health and well-being. In the United States, schools contribute significantly to children’s overall diet quality and can provide up to half of their daily calories, especially among children from low-income families. Providing healthy school meals for all is a policy opportunity to help all children eat healthier. Healthy School Meals for all, also known as universal free school meals, provides all enrolled children in a school operating the National School Lunch or School Breakfast Programs a free breakfast or lunch, regardless of their family’s income. A systematic review included in a Special Issue in the journal Nutrients highlights the international evidence regarding the impact of healthy school meals for all on students’ school meal participation rates, nutrition and dietary intakes, food security, academic performance, attendance, body mass index (BMI), and school finances. This infographic presents the 7 key findings from the systematic review that reveal how healthy school meals for all benefit students and schools.

Related Research

November 2024

School-based nutrition education programs alone are not cost effective for preventing childhood obesity: a microsimulation study

Although interventions to change nutrition policies, systems, and environments (PSE) for children are generally cost effective for preventing childhood obesity, existing evidence suggests that nutrition education curricula, without accompanying PSE changes, are more commonly implemented. This study aimed to estimate the societal costs and potential for cost-effectiveness of 3 nutrition education curricula frequently implemented in More

November 2023

Assessing participation in and implementation of summer electronic-benefits-transfer and non-congregate-meal programs in rural areas

Summer EBT and non-congregate meals are summer meal options that have known associations with reducing food hardship and barriers to food access. But take-up can vary across states, which creates disparities among marginalized populations. The study aims to analyze the coverage, take-up, and implementation decisions made around Summer EBT and non-congregate meals. The research team More

November 2023

Examining the economic value of free school meals to inform future policy decisions on expansion of free school meals in the U.S.

Growing evidence suggests free school meal policies improve student health outcomes and nutrition equity. A key barrier to passage of these policies is concerns regarding potential costs, thus, a broader value for money evaluation is essential to inform policy decisions. This study aims to compare ‘intervention’ states with free school meal policies (i.e., universal free More