“Nothing is more important than our children’s health, but for too many families, healthy meals fall to the wayside as they struggle to make ends meet. Our nation’s school meal and child nutrition programs provide millions of children with nutritious meals and help them develop healthy life habits – and will be critically important in the fight against childhood obesity. As we work to rewrite our child nutrition laws this year, we must focus on eliminating any barriers to these programs, so that all eligible children have access to healthier foods and nutrition education whether in school, child care, or at home.
“Improving child nutrition and tackling childhood obesity will be a challenge, but no one is better equipped to take it on than our First Lady. She has already done wonders to raise public awareness of the benefits of gardening and healthy eating and I applaud her for choosing this as her first key policy initiative. I look forward to working with the First Lady on this initiative and am committed to working with my colleagues in Congress on a bipartisan, comprehensive reauthorization of our child nutrition laws.”
The Education and Labor Committee has jurisdiction over federal school meal and afterschool meal programs, the Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and community-based programs such as the summer meals program and the child and adult care food program.
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