Why School Lunch Should Always Be Free
Pam Koch is the Executive Director and an Associate Research Professor at the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education and Policy, Program in Nutrition. She conducts research with schools and communities to give people power to demand healthy, just, sustainable food. She translates her research into curricula for school teachers, recommendations for policy makers, and resources for advocates. She has evaluated many school-based programs that improve school meals, create school gardens, conduct cooking sessions, and promote food justice. She teaches an online professional development course for educators, Teaching Food and Nutrition for All. Her work contributes to increased access to nutritious, delicious and sustainable food for all.
Errol Schweizer: What is your scope and areas of interests, especially in your leadership role?
Pam Koch: So as the executive director, I kind of oversee everything. And I really think that our mission and vision describe best what we do so. The Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food education and policy, conducts research on food and nutrition, education, practice, and policy. And then we translate that research into resources that can be used by educators, policymakers, and advocates to give people power to demand healthy, just sustainable food. And our vision is that through nutrition education, we can change the status quo.
ES: How do you apply this philosophy?
PK: So we really see schools as levers of social change. And so almost all of our research and advocacy relates to schools. We are advocating for really great experiences that students can have with food and nutrition education. And that can include experiences gardening; school gardens are thankfully on the rise. And so many students are getting experiences being in the garden, this hands on experiences, getting to put seeds in the ground and watch them grow. And then to harvest them is really just amazing, not only because of what it does for the students at that time, but it allows them an appreciation or understanding of what it takes to grow food. And I think then they start to think about all the food that they eat in a really, really different way. Very related to that is our other main research area, working on school meals, because we believe that kids need to eat while they're in school. And then to create the best, most positive meal experience we can have for all students, particularly for the students who are coming from food insecure homes, that are really relying on those meals for a lot of what they're eating. Because it happens each and every day, it can actually be a really great educational tool for kids to learn about food and eating.
We have a school meals program in our country, which is a program that can reach every community in the country because every community has schools. What we realized through this is that when students are in schools, they're basically a captive audience, right? It was this wonderful opportunity to provide food to not only school children, but in many places, also to other people that didn't even have children that needed food, because schools are right there in every community. And so I think what we can really learn is that schools can play a role in food security.
I think the other learning from this is the program that's called pandemic electronic benefit transfer (P-EBT). It's like getting a credit card or debit card to be able to use for food. And so what pandemic electronic benefit transfer did is it made up for the breakfast and lunch that children would have gotten in school. So it was for all families who were eligible for free lunch. So that was either families that economically are eligible for free lunch, or families that were actually part of districts that everyone got meals for free. Just to give an example. New York City schools go through the end of June. So from March to June (2020), it was determined that on average, 74 school days were closed, and families got $5.70 a day, which was the cost of breakfast and lunch. So it came to $420. But that made a real difference to families.
The other really important learning is that basically for this school year, school meals are free for all students. And that is called Universal free meals. And basically there's a lot of debates over whether when we have government programs, they should be universal, like this is, versus targeted for those who need it. I know a lot of other advocates and academics feel the same way that I do on this. It is something that really does make sense to be universal for some of the reasons that I said before, all students are in school all day and they need to eat. And basically, we want to then have the meals be something that feels like it's for everyone. Right now, it's often seen as a poverty program that happens to be run in schools. And so just as an example, almost all schools will describe where they are by the percentage of students that qualify for free and reduced price lunch. It is reinforcing that this is a poverty program in schools, and that program is really only for poor children.
Sometimes I give the analogy of what would it be like if instead of school lunch being a poverty program, science books were a poverty program. So if you were a wealthy family, you had to pay for the science book, if you were not such a wealthy family, you got the science book for free. So just think if what we said is like, “Oh, this is a school where 95% of the students qualify for free science books.” It would be a really different way of looking at things. We have this opportunity through school meals being free for the school year, that we can actually see how this works in schools and use this as an opportunity for a lot of experiments of how does the perception of meals change.
I can tell you, there's a lot of countries around the world that really see school meals as an educational opportunity. Many, many countries really see school meals as an educational part of the day in a way to teach students about food and culture and health and eating and community and less formal ways of interacting with each other. So I hope that that's another one of the learnings that we have is how do we make universal free meals work?
I always like to say that today's children are tomorrow's adults that are going to be facing the really severe public health consequences we have from our current food supply. They will also be facing the ecological destruction that we are having from our current food supply. And also facing the consequences of the injustice, that particularly black indigenous and people of color/BIPOC communities have had of not having access to healthy food for centuries. I believe it is really, really important for us, especially with our current food supply, for all children to get really great education and really great hands on experiences with food gardening, cooking and then as they get older to really understand the consequences of the food supply.
ES: What is the relationship between food and wellbeing for children and teenagers in schools, as well as the importance of food education?
PK: The relationship between food and mental health is an emerging area, and something that we really need to take a lot more seriously and do a lot more research on. The research that we have on it so far really shows it's a two way street. Basically, if you're eating well, you're going to be better able to handle mental health challenges that come up. And it doesn't mean eating well is a remedy for things like depression or other issues. However, if you are eating well, and you are depressed, or having anxiety, you're going to be better be able to respond to therapy. So eating well helps mental health. If you're in good mental health, you're going to be in a place where you actually can have a sense of wellness, a sense of caring about yourself. So I think it means as we're caring for the mental health and wellbeing particularly of our youth, food can help that a lot.
ES: Any closing thoughts or anything else you want to share?
PK: Get involved! Because if we all do this together, we can make the world a healthier, more just and more sustainable place.
