This report to Congress assesses the effectiveness of state and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals without the need for household applications by using data from other means-tested programs. At the start of the 2010-2011 school year, 1.9 million more children were...

Although concern about the quality of children's diets has mounted along with increases in obesity, little is known about the food they purchase in school from a la carte cafeteria sales, vending machines, snack bars, school stores, and other sources. This report describes methods that could be...

Programs using means tests to identify low-income households face a trade-off between promoting access and ensuring program integrity. In the case of the National School Lunch Program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently implemented a pilot program to improve the accuracy of the process...

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the oldest food assistance program in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nutrition safety net. Strategies for improving the diets of NSLP participants are crucial for meeting children’s nutritional needs, fostering healthy eating habits, and...

Finds that overall, the Food Stamp Program reached fewer eligible individuals in 1997 than in 1996; the participation rate decreased by 5 percentage points to 63 percent. This rate was affected by eligibility restrictions on aliens and able-bodied adults without dependents. For households without...

The increasing number of obese children and youth throughout the U.S. has led policymakers to rank obesity as a critical health threat. This report provides a broad-based examination of the nature, extent, and consequences of obesity in the nation, including the social, environmental, medical,...

This report, the largest and most comprehensive examination of Americans who seek emergency food relief and the charitable network that serves them, notes that more than 23 million people received emergency hunger relief from Second Harvest in 2001, an increase of about 7.5 percent or nearly two...

In school year 2004-2005, competitive foods were widely available and consumed in US public schools. The most commonly consumed competitive foods and beverages were low in nutrients and energy-dense. On average, children who consumed competitive foods took in more than 175 calories that were low...