Not American, but here in Australia there is a growing trend towards supplying some level of food at school, quite a few schools are introducing Breakfast Club to offer food before school, and a lot of schools find they can get better nutrition for students by supplying balanced options to students directly via a variety of programs.

Food and Kids can be quite complicated and my own son can be quite resistant to the idea of even having food in his school bag as his medication supresses appetite and he feels pressured if we make him something as opposed to providing shelf stable packaged foods that won’t spoil if he can’t bring himself to eat.

From what I understand of the situation in the US this is an intersectional issue where it has been identified that:

• Preparing food in bulk is a lot cheaper
• Food can be fresh and thus encourage kids to eat it more readily
• Nutritional outcomes can be targeted

Which is intersecting with:

• America is a capitalist hellscape where no opportunity to profit of anyone, no matter how vulnerable, can be overlooked
• There are multiple levels in the school lunch program where private companies can invade to engage in some rent seeking
• Social pressure can be exerted to make sure families feel obligated to participate no matter how expensive or predatory the program
• Never ever should a poor person be allowed to feel a modicum of support or relief, if that can be achieved by leveraging their children so much the better.