The Detroit News framed a recent story as wealthy districts winning in Michigan’s Healthy Meals for All program. But the most important fact was buried: many districts, including Detroit Public Schools, Flint, Grand Rapids and Lansing, receive zero state dollars because the federal government already fully covers their meal costs. There is no gap left for the state to fill in lower-income districts.What state funding does is reach the children that federal dollars can’t. More than one in four Michigan children live in households that earn too much for their meals to qualify for full federal reimbursement, yet providing 10 healthy meals a week is financially out of reach for their families. These children exist in every district, including the wealthiest ones.
There’s also a human cost to means-tested meal programs that rarely makes it into funding analyses: stigma. For years, school meals were labeled as for the “poor kids,” and many children who needed them refused to participate. Universal free meals change that. When everyone eats the same lunch, no child has to choose between hunger and shame.Research also shows that, on average, school meals are healthier than most packed lunches — meeting federal standards for fruits, vegetables and whole grains that many home-packed meals do not. Free school meals improve students’ diets, regardless of their family income.Providing school meals and improving academic outcomes aren’t competing priorities. Michigan’s children need both.
Katherine W. BauerAssociate Professor of Nutritional SciencesDirector, Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health PolicyUniversity of Michigan
Monique Stanton
President, CEOMichigan League for Public Policy
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Free school meals are an investment in Michigan children | Letter
Reporting by Letter to the editor / The Detroit News
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