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Statement

House Bill Titled ‘Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act’ Will Do Just the Opposite

April 22, 2016
Youth & Family Justice

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

STATEMENT OF Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director and CEO, MomsRising, on the Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016
“The bill introduced this week in the U.S. House of Representatives to reauthorize the federal child nutrition programs actually weakens those programs, which are intended to ensure that children have access to the healthy and nutritious meals they need to thrive. It would cut off food programs for tens of thousands of children who need them and create unnecessary barriers that would prevent additional children from enrolling.
 
“Instead of expanding these crucial programs, the so-called ‘Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016’ would dramatically reduce the number of high poverty schools that can implement community eligibility, thereby creating administrative barriers to qualify students for much needed free school lunches and breakfasts and resulting in fewer hungry children having access to healthy school meals.  
 
“This bill would eliminate the ability of daycare centers and homes to provide children with an additional snack when they are in care for long periods of time, and also weakens nutrition standards for school meals and snacks.
 
“The damage also extends to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), eliminating the option of making children eligible for WIC up to age six, which would bridge the gap between this program and school-based meal programs.
 
“These are just a few examples of the ways this act would roll back the advances that have been made in ensuring that low-income children get the nutritious meals they need. Studies show that good nutrition not only helps children grow up healthy, it helps them learn and succeed academically. 
 
“At a time when one in five children in our nation are food insecure – going to bed hungry and not sure where their next meal might come from, Moms across the country are outraged that we are not doing everything in our power to feed as many of these hungry children as possible. Instead, we have cynical proposals like the ‘Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016.’
 
“We call on the House Education and Workforce Committee to examine closely the ways this bill would weaken childhood nutrition programs – creating barriers to enrollment and undercutting nutrition standards – and amend it accordingly. This is not the time to deny low-income children the nutritious meals and snacks they need to be healthy, learn and succeed.”
 

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MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.