School Lunch and Nutrition Education Some Questions and Answers Prepared by Interdivisional Committee on Nutrition Education and School Lunch of the Office of Education Under the direction of Edna P. Amidon, Chairman Chief, Home Economics Education Service BULLETIN 1951, No. 14 UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1951 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office Washington 25, D. C. Price 10 cents FOREWORD INTEREST in the school lunch program and nutrition education has been growing throughout the Nation over a period of years, especially since the enactment of the National School Lunch Act in 1945. School administrators, teachers, members of school boards, school lunch managers, parents, and others are asking the Office of Education pertinent questions about various phases of these programs. Some of them are working in schools that are considering, for the first time, the setting up of a school lunch program, whereas others are desirous of improving their present procedures. The Interdivisional Committee on Nutrition Education and School Lunch of the Office of Education believed that a compact publication, answering those pertinent questions about school lunch and nutrition education, which are most frequently asked, would be helpful to the many people concerned. Such a publication would high light the more detailed statements on these subjects. Under the direction of Edna P. Amidon, chairman of the Interdivisional Committee, a subcommittee consisting of Helen K. Mackintosh, H. F. Kilander, and Erick L. Lindman has prepared this material. Other members of the Interdivisional Committee on Nutrition Education and School Lunch, as well as a number of persons outside the Office of Education, have made helpful suggestions to the subcommittee. The publication answers briefly 21 questions which deal with the relation of the school lunch to nutrition education, health aspects of the school lunch, and certain administrative and financial matters. It is hoped that this publication will serve as a helpful guide to those concerned with school lunch programs and nutrition education as they affect children and youth in the United States. GALEN JONES, Director, Division of Elementary and Secondary Schools. III NO PHASE of the school program comes more directly from community initiative than the school lunch program. Long before State legislatures enacted laws pertaining to school lunches, parents, teachers, and other community leaders organized on a voluntary basis to provide hot meals for children at school. Recognition by State legislatures and the United States Congress came after the people in thousands of communities throughout the Nation had decided that their children should receive a nutritious lunch at school and had made some provision for it. The extent of participation by the local public-school system at present ranges from granting permission to use a schoolroom in which to serve lunches to providing modern cafeteria facilities, employing cooks, dietitians, and other school lunch personnel, and accepting full responsibility for the operation of the school lunch program. In communities where the school system operates the lunch program, the extent to which tax funds are used to supplement receipts from the sale of lunches varies greatly from one school system to another, reflecting different concepts of public responsibility for the program. In some communities the school lunch is regarded as a quasi public service in which the school accepts responsibility for management and for 948255-51 1 |