School lunch politics [electronic resource] : the surprising history of America's favorite welfare program / Susan Levine.

ISBN:

9781400841486

Title:

Author:

Levine, Susan, 1947-

Personal Author:

Levine, Susan, 1947-

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 250 pages) : illustrations.

Series:

Politics and society in twentieth-century America

General Note:

1st pbk printing 2010.

Contents:

Introduction. The politics of lunch -- 1. A diet for Americans. The search for a scientific diet ; A diet for Americans ; Nutrition and malnutrition ; School lunch as public policy -- 2. Welfare for farmers and children. School lunches for hungry children ; Eating the surplus ; The institutionalization of school lunch -- 3. Nutrition standards and standard diets. School lunch standards ; Nutrition in the national defense ; Eating democracy -- 4. A national school lunch program. Agriculture or education? ; The liberal compromise ; Discrimination and segregation -- 5. Ideals and realities in the lunchroom. Nutrition and surplus commodities ; Nutrition and the food service industry ; The limits of the lunchroom -- 6. No free lunch. Discovering hunger in America ; Agriculture or welfare? ; Food and the poverty line -- 7. A right to lunch. The free lunch mandate ; The women's campaign ; School lunch and civil rights ; Eligibility standards and the right to lunch -- 8. Let them eat ketchup. Who pays for free lunch? ; Combo meals and nutrition standards ; Ketchup and other vegetables -- Epilogue. Fast food and poor children.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

National school lunch program.

School children -- Food -- United States.

Children -- Nutrition -- United States.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2008

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
371.716 23	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Whether kids love or hate the food served there, the American school lunchroom is the stage for one of the most popular yet flawed social welfare programs in our nation's history. School Lunch Politics covers this complex and fascinating part of American culture, from its origins in early twentieth-century nutrition science, through the establishment of the National School Lunch Program in 1946, to the transformation of school meals into a poverty program during the 1970s and 1980s. Susan Levine investigates the politics and culture of food; most specifically, who decides what American children should be eating, what policies develop from those decisions, and how these policies might be better implemented.

Even now, the school lunch program remains problematic, a juggling act between modern beliefs about food, nutrition science, and public welfare. Levine points to the program menus' dependence on agricultural surplus commodities more than on children's nutritional needs, and she discusses the political policy barriers that have limited the number of children receiving meals and which children were served. But she also shows why the school lunch program has outlasted almost every other twentieth-century federal welfare initiative. In the midst of privatization, federal budget cuts, and suspect nutritional guidelines where even ketchup might be categorized as a vegetable, the program remains popular and feeds children who would otherwise go hungry.

As politicians and the media talk about a national obesity epidemic, School Lunch Politics is a timely arrival to the food policy debates shaping American health, welfare, and equality.

Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

Author Notes

Susan Levine is professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of Labor's True Woman and Degrees of Equality .

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Levine (Univ. of Illinois at Chicago) chronicles the history of what she describes as the most popular--yet flawed and poorly understood--social welfare program in the US: The National School Lunch Program. Tracing its roots from the charity efforts of Progressive Era women to the role it played in subsidies to agriculture, Levine reveals the political, economic, and cultural forces that shaped this more than 50-year-old federal program. The last two chapters address contemporary concerns about privatization, fast food, and the health of children living in poverty. While studies in the politics of food have become popular in the last decade (Food Politics, CH, Oct'03, 41-0962), as have studies of welfare (Michael B. Katz, The Price of Citizenship, 2001), Levine's work stands out for linking these two areas of inquiry. This book is accessible and interesting. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers. M. J. Garrison D'Youville College