As part of the School Meals Initiative, the US Department of Agriculture-Food and Nutrition Service requires each state to review the nutritional content of food served by each School Food Authority as part of the National School Lunch Program. This text contains the resultant data for 2002.
As part of the School Meals Initiative (SMI), the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Food and Nutrition Service (USDA-FNS) now requires each state to regularly review the nutritional content of food served by each School Food Authority (SFA) as part of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). While states must monitor the nutritional content of school meals, they are not required to forward any information to USDA-FNS. However, USDA-FNS is required to measure progress to "ensure that school meals are consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) and the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA)." To measure progress, USDA-FNS needs to produce state and national aggregations of the nutrient content in school lunches to show that meals in a given state or in the country as a whole are consistent with the DGA and RDA. In addition, FNS needs to do this while imposing minimal reporting burdens on the states. The USDA-FNS contracted with RAND to look more carefully at how some states are performing SMI reviews and how they might be able to transmit data with limited additional burden. In particular, it asked seven states to work collaboratively with RAND--through on-site, in-depth interviews--to explore possible reporting systems: California, Georgia, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin. These states were chosen as representative of regional differences across the country and of methods for conducting SMI reviews. This report describes the results of the analysis of possible approaches for states to report the results of their nutritional reviews to USDA-FNS.
What follows are the responses from officials of the state Departments of Education of California, Georgia, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Texas (including Region XIII), and Wisconsin to a questionnaire put forth to aid in analyzing the School Meals Initiative program. Each chapter begins with a list of participants.
Ensuring that the food provided to children in schools is consistent with current dietary recommendations is an important national focus. Various laws and regulations govern the operation of school meal programs. In 1995, Nutrition Standards and Meal Requirements were put in place to ensure that all meals offered would be high in nutritional quality. School Meals reviews and provides recommendations to update the nutrition standard and the meal requirements for the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs. The recommendations reflect new developments in nutrition science, increase the availability of key food groups in the school meal programs, and allow these programs to better meet the nutritional needs of children, foster healthy eating habits, and safeguard children's health. School Meals sets standards for menu planning that focus on food groups, calories, saturated fat, and sodium and that incorporate Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the Dietary Reference Intakes. This book will be used as a guide for school food authorities, food producers, policy leaders, state/local governments, and parents.
Identifies and describes specific government assistance opportunities such as loans, grants, counseling, and procurement contracts available under many agencies and programs.
