Even though over half of all Texan public school children qualify for free meals at school, many do not participate and have poorer nutrition, writes Diane Papillion, lecturer of nutritional sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, in an op-ed picked up by several newspapers in Texas.
Papillion writes that it is time to reverse this trend, saying the national school lunch program began 70 years ago after an investigation showed that malnutrition was the root cause for many WWII draft rejections. She explains that these programs have been one of the most successful interventions in the U.S. and are even more critical given that many children today live in food insecure households. She points out that the good news is that big cities are trying to reverse this trend by reducing both the stigma and paperwork for families.
Read the whole piece in The Dallas Morning News, The Houston Chronicle, or The Corpus Christi Caller-Times:
There is no excuse for Texas children to go hungry at lunch
Papillion: Hunger should not be part of Texas children's lives
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