A 1940s child nutrition program has been a subject of debate for decades, reflecting shifting political priorities.
The federal school lunch program serves nearly five billion meals annually, with benefits for the health and academic performance of the 29 million students who take part. Retro Report traces the transformation of the program from a 1946 initiative addressing malnutrition into an effort caught up in debates about everything from the federal deficit to teenage obesity to government intervention in people’s lives.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration proposed budget-cuts and new regulations that reduced portion sizes of school lunches while allowing condiments like pickle relish to count as vegetables. William Hoagland, the federal official overseeing the program, defended the cuts at the time. “This was a fiscal decision, more so than it was a nutritional decision,” he said at the time. The regulations sparked public outrage and media scorn before they were modified.
By the mid-1990s, with childhood obesity on the rise, schools were criticized for serving unhealthy fast-food options. In 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama launched an effort to make lunches healthier, but opponents labeled her plans as government overreach. Under federal waivers during the Covid pandemic, students nationwide benefited from receiving free meals regardless of income, raising the question of whether universal meals should be the policy going forward.
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