Making positive changes in the types of foods available to children in schools has the potential to have a substantial impact on their dietary intakes and the prevalence of childhood obesity. Although federal regulation requires that school districts have policies about all foods offered on...

This report responds to the legislative requirement of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (P.L.110-246) to assess the effectiveness of State and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).

This nationally representative study, the first comprehensive look at the SFSP since 1986, found that more than 4,000 local sponsors provided about 130 million meals at more than 35,000 feeding sites in fiscal year 2001. The number of children served in July 2001—2.1 million per...

Compared to the 2002 FITS study, FITS 2008 shows a higher percentage of infants are being breastfed, and fewer infants are consuming infant cereal. The percentage of infants and toddlers consuming desserts or candy, sweetened beverages, and salty snacks was significantly lower in 2008; however,...