Iowa's Dave Loebsack on the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act

Dear Constituent,

Given your interest in improving school meals and nutrition for Iowa's children, it's my pleasure to let you know that today the House of Representatives passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, S. 3307. You can see me speaking about the bill here. The bill passed the House by a bi-partisan vote of 258-156. The bill previously passed the Senate unanimously and will now be sent to the President for his signature.
 
This re-authorization bill is a truly historic piece of legislation and is one of the most significant recent steps to help end childhood hunger and obesity in America. It is far from perfect, but is a dramatic improvement over the status quo, and will improve the quality of meals and access to before, during, after-school, and summer meals for millions of children nationwide.
 
The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently reported that in 2009, over 450,000 families with children had one or more children who did not get enough to eat. In my eyes, this is simply unacceptable in the wealthiest and most advanced nation on earth. In order to prepare our children to compete in an increasingly global economy, we must make childhood nutrition a priority. This legislation takes major steps to address these issues in the places where our children learn and grow.
 
To that end, I was happy to have a number of provisions I authored included in this final legislation. I am proud that the bill includes my entire Healthy Food for Healthy Schools Act and also includes nearly all the crucial provisions of the Hunger Free Schools Act. Together, these provisions will ensure schools have healthier options for school foods and will give kids new and easier access to school meals.
 
Specifically, the provisions from the Healthy Food for Healthy Schools Act will improve the quality and healthfulness of school food products and their processing and will ensure schools have the information they need to make healthy choices for school foods and menus. Additionally, provisions from my Hunger Free Schools Act will give new access to school meals to over 110,000 students nationwide and cut red tape while improving access for hundreds of thousands more children nationwide.
 
The provisions of the Hunger Free Schools Act will: expand automatic enrollment in the school meals program through the use of Medicaid data thereby lessening the administrative costs and red tape on schools and parents; provide incentives to states to improve their level of automatic enrollment of kids for schools meals; and give high poverty schools a new option to serve free meals to all students – this will also significantly reduce the administrative burden on schools that really need to be focusing on teaching, not paperwork.
 
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 will also increase the per-meal reimbursement rates for schools for the first time in over 30 years and includes key provisions I supported for local foods through the Farm to School Program. Further, this bill is going to reduce the availability of junk foods and sugary beverages on school campuses, strengthen local wellness policies, improve public and private partnerships to reduce childhood hunger and obesity, and also improve nutrition and wellness for children in child care.
 
I am happy this legislation included provisions I wrote, but most importantly, I hope children will be healthier, will have a better learning environment, and that our child nutrition programs will fulfill our commitment to ending childhood hunger through this legislation. Thank you for your support for this effort and your work on behalf of Iowa's children.         
 

Sincerely,

Dave Loebsack
Member of Congress

~Congressman
Dave Loebsack was first elected to the United States House of
Representatives in 2006 and represents the Second District of Iowa. He serves on The House Education and Labor Committee and The House Armed Services Committee. To learn more about Congressman Loebsack click here.