{"id":395,"date":"2024-07-31T13:58:10","date_gmt":"2024-07-31T13:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/?p=395"},"modified":"2024-07-31T13:58:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T13:58:10","slug":"approaching-food-insecurity-in-nyc-public-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/?p=395","title":{"rendered":"Approaching Food Insecurity in NYC Public Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, food insecurity is a greater problem than ever, with one in ten households <\/a><\/u>in the U.S. having insufficient resources to access food in 2022. The pandemic has exacerbated the issue by halting food production and distribution, drastically increasing prices. In particular, students have been impacted by food insecurity during the pandemic. One of the first programs that underwent changes as a result of the pandemic was the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) which provides low-cost or free lunches to students in K-12 public and nonprofit private schools, as well as childcare services.  According to research by t<\/a>he USDA Economic Research Service <\/a>[1]<\/a>,<\/a><\/u>  ⅓ of households with school-aged children in December 2022 stated that paying for school meals made them less able to pay other expenses. Because of a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) pandemic waiver that had meals free of charge to every student, the NSLP could provide 4.9 billion meals in fiscal year 2022. The program was thus successful in reducing food insecurity during the pandemic, but it expired in the summer of 2022 because it wasn’t sustainable as a substitute for the lack of funds children had at home to access food.
\n The question we must ask is this: how can and what has the government been doing to provide for public school students in a post-pandemic world? Unfortunately, in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams cut $60 million<\/a><\/u> out of public schools’ food budgets in November. The food items that will be removed in February are cookies, chicken dumplings, bean and cheese burritos, and roasted chicken thighs and legs. Food items to be removed are being replaced with less satiating food options marketed as healthy vegetarian options that are less appetizing to students. In reality, the budget cut has stripped students away from nutritious options such as bean and cheese burritos, chicken dumplings, and roasted chicken thighs and legs. Students have expressed how cuts to these options would likely make them seek meals outside of the cafeteria, many of whom don’t have the budget to do so. To combat this, one solution may be for NYC to bring back its Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT<\/a><\/u>) food benefits in which children receiving free lunch through the NSLP would receive $120-$391 for the summer of 2022 and 2023. Instead, this could be stretched out across the school year for students to have money to pay for lunch outside of school time.
\n Another solution could be to allocate funds to create a program similar to that of the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) in Brazil which has had some impressive results while providing for 40 million students, even more than the number of students under the NSLP. From 2004 to 2013, Brazil was able to decrease food insecurity in families from 9.5% to 4.2%<\/a><\/u> because of investments in family farming and Bolsa Familia<\/a><\/u> that provided stipends to low-income families with children in school, which shows an example of how increased investments towards EBT could decrease hunger among students in New York. A key part of the PNAE is that it is nationally funded, demonstrating that resolving the issue of hunger in NYC Public Schools requires increased budgeting by the NSLP. As Brazil is also trying to rebound from the pandemic, President de Silva increased the budget<\/a><\/u> by 35% in March 2023. Applying this to New York, children should be able to have access to nutritious foods, so, on a state level, the NYC Public Schools can partner with local farmers to source its produce that is on average, cheaper than food bought at supermarkets<\/a><\/u>, reducing costs and supporting the local agricultural sector. This would be a similar approach to the law established in Brazil in 2009 that mandated for the NSLP to invest 30%<\/a><\/u> of its funds towards food from family farmers, which has encouraged children to enjoy more nourishing foods (more fruits and vegetables).
\n What is at stake with Brazil’s policy is the success of children in schools. Studies on the eating habits of college students have found that there is a correlation<\/a><\/u> between a higher GPA and eating 3 meals a day, and students that have higher academic achievement ate more fruit daily. Fruit consumption is encouraged by the NSLP’s investment towards local farming, while this is limited by NYC’s current policy of reducing its investments towards students’ meals. Furthermore, the protein being cut out of school lunches is important for childrens’ academic success because plant-based proteins have been found in an observational study to decrease risk of cognitive decline, which students can’t reap the benefits of with the removal of bean burritos. Proteins can mostly be found in poultry, seafood, meat and are also found to encourage the production of the brain chemicals of norepinephrine and dopamine that help people be alert and active, skills essential for long school days that require students to have longer attention spans.
\n Now more than ever, less than a year after the pandemic’s end was officially declared, students need to be supported by their schools, especially in a city in which schools are one of the main sources of food for many children. NYC should spend more money on food in public schools to meet the nutritional needs and preferences of students. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*As of March 6, 2024, Mayor Eric Adams re-budgeted the school lunch program, allowing for some of the more nutritious food items to return to the cafeteria. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, food insecurity is a greater problem than ever, with one in ten households in the U.S. having insufficient resources to access food in 2022. The pandemic has exacerbated the issue by halting food production and distribution, drastically increasing prices. In particular, students have been impacted by food insecurity during the pandemic. One of the… Read More »Approaching Food Insecurity in NYC Public Schools<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-insecurity-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":396,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions\/396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}