It's hard to believe that in this climate when health concerns, childhood obesity, and parents' who are struggling to get and keep jobs are all over the news that US polititians have chosen to delay the vote on the Child Nutrition Act and gone home. Advocates, including your's truely, have been pushing for a new Child Nutrition Bill for almost two years. Our expectations were high at first but as always, politics took over. The proposed bill includes only a six cent increase in the reimbursement rate for school lunch. None of us could feed kids for that. The current one expired today despite the thousands of letters received by House members urging passage. They did pass a two month extension on the budget so members could go home and campaign.
A child nutrition bill was a centerpiece of Michelle Obama's healthful eating campaign. One of the stumbling blocks was the proposed use of food stamp dollars to pay for it. Why we have to resort to using dollars earmarked to improving the health and economic support of Americans to support legislation that improves the health of American children is not easily understood by most of us.
Next? Legislation could be considered after the election but keep in mind it is a lame duck session. The unfortunate part is that this could have been a historic moment: it's the first time in 30 years that the reimbursement rate for school lunches was increased and there were a number of different components of the bill that helped improve nutrition not only in schools but also in other federal initiatives.
Kids learn better when they are well fed. I urge you to continue putting the pressure on your legislators to pass this legislation and finance it from somewhere else besides other nutrition programs. For the sake of our children.
I certainly intend to!
Healthy Eating!
Marcia
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