Feeding Children and Maintaining Food Service Operations during COVID-19: A Mixed Methods Investigation of Implementation and Financial Challenges.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs are critical for the health and food security of U.S. schoolchildren, but access to these programs was disrupted by COVID-19 pandemic-related school closures in spring 2020. While temporary policy changes to the programs enabled school food authorities (SFAs) to pivot towards distributing meals throughout their communities instead of within school buildings, SFAs faced complex challenges during COVID-19 with minimal external support. This mixed methods study investigates the implementation and financial challenges experienced by twelve of the largest urban SFAs in the U.S. during COVID-19. We conducted semi-structured interviews with SFA leaders and analyzed alongside quantitative financial data. We found that SFAs reconfigured their usual operations with nearly no preparation time while simultaneously trying to keep staff from contracting COVID-19, accommodate stakeholders with sometimes competing priorities, and remain financially solvent. Because student participation was much lower than during regular times, and revenue is tied to the number of meals served, SFAs saw drastic decreases in revenue even as they carried regular operating costs. For future crises, disaster preparedness plans that help SFAs better navigate the switch to financially viable community distribution methods are needed.

A Safety Net Unraveling: Feeding Young Children During COVID-19.

The emergence of COVID-19 in the United States led most states to close or severely limit the capacity of their early child-care and education (ECE) programs. This loss affected millions of young children, including many of the 4.6 million low-income children who are provided free meals and snacks by their ECE programs through support from the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP).Although Congress swiftly authorized waivers that would allow CACFP-participating ECE programs to continue distributing food to children, early evidence suggests that most ECE programs did not have the capacity to do so, leaving a fragmented system of federal, state, and local food programs to fill the gaps created by this loss.Critical steps are needed to repair our nation's fragile ECE system, including greater investment in CACFP, to ensure the nutrition, health, and development of young children during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

The impact of COVID-19 on food systems, safety, and security-a symposium report.

Our food systems depend on complex interactions between farmers and food producers, local and federal governments, and consumers. Underlying these interactions are economic, environmental, and societal factors that can impact the types of food available, access to food, affordability, and food safety. The recent SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic has affected multiple aspects of our food systems, from federal governments' decisions to limit food exports, to the ability of government agencies to inspect food and facilities to the ability of consumers to dine at restaurants. It has also provided opportunities for societies to take a close look at the vulnerabilities in our food systems and reinvent them to be more robust and resilient. For the most part, how these changes ultimately affect the safety and accessibility of food around the world remains to be seen.

Half of children entitled to free school meals did not have access to the scheme during COVID-19 lockdown in the UK.

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of the study were to investigate access to free school meals (FSMs) among eligible children, to describe factors associated with uptake and to investigate whether receiving FSMs was associated with measures of food insecurity in the UK using the Coronavirus (COVID-19) wave of the UK Household Longitudinal Study. STUDY DESIGN: The study design was cross-sectional analyses of questionnaire data collected in April 2020. METHODS: Six hundred and thirty-five children who were FSM eligible with complete data were included in the analytic sample. Accessing a FSM was defined as receiving a FSM voucher or a cooked meal at school. Multivariable logistic regression was used to investigate (i) associations between characteristics and access to FSMs and (ii) associations between access to FSMs and household food insecurity measures. All analyses accounted for survey design and sample weights to ensure representativeness. RESULTS: Fifty-one percent of eligible children accessed a FSM. Children in junior schools or above (aged 8+ years) (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 11.81; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.54, 25.19), who belonged to low-income families (AOR: 4.81; 95% CI: 2.10, 11.03) or still attending schools (AOR: 5.87; 95% CI: 1.70, 20.25) were more likely to receive FSMs. Children in Wales were less likely to access FSMs than those in England (AOR: 0.11; 95% CI: 0.03, 0.43). Receiving a FSM was associated with increased odds of recently using a food bank but not reporting feeling hungry. CONCLUSIONS: In the month after the COVID-19 lockdown, 49% of eligible children did not receive any form of FSMs. The present analyses highlight that the voucher scheme did not adequately serve children who could not attend school during the lockdown. Moreover, more needs to be done to support families relying on income-related benefits, who still report needing to access a food bank. As the scheme may be continued in summer or in a potential second wave, large improvements will be needed to improve its reach.