Understanding Childhood Hunger

Child Nutrition Reauthorization 2010

Latest News

Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act of 2010

June 10, 2010--The House version of a bill to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act (CNA) was introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers . The Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act encourages public and private partnerships to reduce childhood hunger and increase access to food for hungry school kids, two key elements of Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry™ campaign. Early estimates indicate that the funding levels will be close to $8 billion over 10 years, which is closer to President's Obama's request for $1 billion per year over 10 years than the Senate version of the reauthorizing legislation.

The CNA is critical to the 17 million kids in America who struggle with hunger. The law funds national school lunch and school breakfast programs, summer meals, Child and Adult Care Food and WIC programs and other vital nutrition programs.

The legislation would increase children's access to federal nutrition programs through three key changes:

  • Using Medicaid and State Children Health Insurance Program data to automatically enroll eligible children in the federal school meals programs (known as direct certification) and do away with the requirement for individual applications.
  • Making it easier for high-poverty schools to serve meals at no cost to eligible children by using census date to determine schoolwide eligibility and eliminating individual applications.
  • Increasing the availability of school breakfast by providing competitive grants to school districts to start or improve programs.

The CNA is critical to the nearly 17 million kids in America who struggle with hunger. The law authorizes national school lunch and school breakfast programs, summer meals, Child and Adult Care Food, WIC programs and other vital nutrition programs. This bill would support community efforts to reduce childhood hunger, improve the quality of meals for children, in and out of school, and, for the first time, establish nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools.

The House legislation builds on the strong investments in child nutrition passed out of the Senate Agriculture Committee in March, the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act. Learn More»

The Ending Childhood Hunger Challenge Act
On June 8, Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced H.R. 5480 The Ending Childhood Hunger Challenge Act that would challenge states to end childhood hunger by 2015 and give them necessary tools and resources to do so. Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) successfully added a similar provision to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in the Senate Agriculture Committee. The challenge grants would provide qualifying states with funding to develop innovative programs to ensure that all kids in need have access to federal nutrition programs.

If you liked this, please help us spread the word by sharing it with others.