An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away:

Why Then Doesn’t the President’s Budget Proposal Assure

Our Children Even That Much?

President Obama’s Budget became public recently and one of the many items in the massive $4.5 trillion expenditures is $1 billion per year for Child Nutrition split between the National School Lunch Program and the WIC Program.  At first blush, given the economy and the call for a 3-year freeze on discretionary spending, this might seem like a win for America’s children; and groups like The School Nutrition Association, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest have applauded the proposal.

I believe we need to take a closer look at what this really means and perhaps rub the shine off of this offered apple.  The National School Lunch Program feeds approximately 5.4 billion lunches per year with an approximate cost of $8.5 million dollars.  This equates to approximately $2.68 reimbursement for a free lunch student, of which $1 or less is typically spent on food.  I want to reiterate – less than a dollar for the food on our children’s plates every day.  With that in mind, it seems so clear that we need more money for healthy food for all of our children.

I previously wrote about the relationship between our health care woes and school lunch and how we truly need to equate the unhealthy food we so often serve our children in schools to the growing obesity and diabetes crises which is consuming the children in our country.  Research now seems clear that the generation born in the year 2000 may actually die at a younger age than their parents because of what we feed them.

Michael Pollan wrote in the New York Times that we’re spending over $260 billion per year on health care costs for just two diseases, diabetes and obesity.  So we have an unfunded school lunch program, health care costs that are crippling the economy and a new budget that we’re supposed to applaud for giving our children what amounts to a ½ an apple a day.

I believe we can do better.  I do not believe we should stand up and applaud the half apple – I think we should demand that our elected officials do more.  In a multi-trillion dollar budget there’s got to be room for more than ½ an apple for our kids’ health.  What I’m suggesting is that we demand an extra dollar per lunch per day for our children.  I’m suggesting that we demand that that dollar is spent primarily on fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and whole grains with a priority on regional procurement.  The total cost of this $1 per child per day would be approximately $5.4 billion, which might seem like a lot, but truly is so little and can do so much.

I’m suggesting that we demand that the health of our Nation’s children become the number one priority in our spending.  With the war still costing approximately $3 billion per week, with the health care costs Michael Pollan describes costing $5 billion per week – how can we not allocate $5.4 billion a year for our children.

I have heard Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack will be discussing his plans for the Child Nutrition Reauthorization soon. I hope what we hear is more than the proposed ½ an apple per child scenario. Assuming it’s not, we at the Lunch Box, with collaboration from a number of other groups will begin a letter writing campaign on Tuesday 2.9 asking the USDA and all of our elected officials to give just one more dollar toward healthy school food and the future health of all of our children.

Join us!  Look for links to the campaign at www.thelunchbox.org and www.chefann.com as well as the campaign itself at www.lunchboxadvocates.org .

Joining this campaign may be the most important one thing you can do for our children’s health in the coming year.  Literally their lives very well might depend upon it.