The U.S. House of Representatives has passed and sent to President Barack Obama a bill that boosts funding for the school lunch program by $4.5 billion through 2020 and bans “junk” food from school buildings.
Backers said it would be the first real increase in reimbursement rates for schools in 30 years and a step toward healthier meals. Obama is expected to sign the bill, which the Senate passed in August.
When he took office, Obama suggested an increase of $1 billion a year as part of a campaign to end childhood hunger by 2015. Congress postponed work for a year because of funding shortages. In the end, it scaled back a recession-fighting increase in food stamp benefits to pay for the bill.
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More than 32 million students eat hot meals each day through the school lunch program and more than 12 million a day eat breakfast through a companion program. Two-thirds of the lunches are free or at reduced price for poor children.
The government underwr ites school meals, operated by local schools, and a handful of smaller child-nutrition programs at more than $17 billion a year. The bill approved by Congress would increase funding by $450 million annually for a decade.
It would add about 115,000 students to the program by streamlining paperwork and allow universal access at schools in high-poverty areas.
It boosts the per-meal reimbursement by six cents, the first noninflationary increase in 30 years, and bans high-calorie sugary and salty “junk” foods. It also would help pay for after-school meals to poor children at child-care centres.
First Lady Michelle Obama said in a statement the bill “will significantly improve the quality of meals that children receive at school and will play an integral role in our efforts to combat childhood obesity.”
