$6.8 Million Funds to Support Healthy School Meals

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The U. S. Dept. of Agriculture announced on March 7th, 2016, that they will continue to support the ongoing success of child nutrition programs like the School Breakfast Program.

Agriculture Undersecretary Kevin Concannon said in a recent article, that the USDA will award $6.8 million in competitive Team Nutrition Training Grants to help provide support to schools and child care sites for successful implementation of healthy meals.

According to the USDA, participation in school breakfast programs has increased by almost 27 percent; over 14 million students are now eating school breakfast each day.

Nutritious meals are important to many Latino kids across the nation that eat more than half of their daily calories at school.

The Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System (PedNSS), a program-based analysis of the US Department of Health and Human Services, shows that young Hispanic children have the greatest prevalence of obesity in the United States.

“Obesity is the single most important risk factor for diabetes and the recent increase in diabetes in the U.S. and globally is largely due to rising obesity,” said HU Chan, professor of nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Diabetes and pre-diabetes will cost the U.S. economy $336 billion per year by 2034. Diabetes cost the U.S. more than $174 billion in 2007, according to the Lewin Group, a healthcare policy research and management consulting firm.

Having healthy food access throughout the day is vital to the everyday health of Latino kids in the United States.

Click here to learn more about how school food environments impact Latino kids’ health.

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