Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: School Lunch and SNAP: Participation, Obesity and Academic Achievement

(Poverty and Income Policy)

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and The National School Lunch Program (NLSP) are the largest two federal food programs in the U.S., aiming to address food insecurity for tens of millions of children and families each day. Advocates claim that these programs can help bridge the gap between poor and non-poor children and families by providing healthier food alternatives to those with few options. If successful, both SNAP and NLSP can mitigate some of the negative consequences of poverty including hunger, malnutrition, and developmental delays. The proposed panel includes four papers that address the efficacy of these two nutrition assistance programs, providing evidence on the implications for the health and well-being of their respective recipients. Importantly, the papers in this panel assess multiple outcomes of the programs, beyond whether food assistance is made available, and instead on the consequences of distribution design for program take-up, food consumption, consumption smoothing, academic achievement, and weight and obesity. The papers in this panel use data from multiple resources, using administrative data sets, nationally representative panels, and primary survey data in order to assess the intended (increased participation) and unintended (perhaps, increased obesity) consequences of these food assistance programs. Further, the papers dig into the design of assistance distribution, assessing the extent to which timing, stigma, convenience and regulatory health standards affect the level of program take-up and the potential implications for the health and well-being of program participants. Taken together, this panel will provide insight on the impact of food supports policies in the United States, shedding light on effects of the largest two programs in the country for both consumption behavior and childhood well-being.