Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010

Floor Speech

Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S. 3307, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, a bill that provides a historic investment in the health of our nation's children. This bill will help address the severe concerns of both obesity and hunger that severely impact them.

In my home state of New York alone, the statistics are staggering:

32.9 percent of children in New York are overweight or obese and New York taxpayers spend an estimated $6.1 billion on Medicaid and Medicare each year to treat obesity-related chronic diseases.

16.7 percent of children under 18 in New York are at-risk of being hungry. This bill will expand access to the child nutrition programs and fill nutrition gaps when family resources are tight.

1,813,000 of New York's children participate in the National School Lunch Program, NSLP, each year and will receive healthier school meals provided by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. 1,147,000 of those kids are low-income children, who will benefit from better access to free school meals through promotion of and improvements to direct certification.

New York will receive up to $17.5 million to improve the nutrition quality of school lunches because of this bill.

281,500 children in New York participate in the Child and Adult Food Care Program and will benefit from increased resources, more training to childcare providers to serve healthier meals and snacks and increased physical activity.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act will streamline certification periods in the WIC program and provide New York's 514,500 participants with better nutrition services coordination, increased opportunities for nutrition intervention, and more support and counseling time.

New York has 110 Farm to School programs. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act provides dedicated funding to help schools to support local agriculture and provide children with more health and nutrition education opportunities.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act goes a long way toward improving the nutrition of our school meals and strengthening accountability to produce healthier results for our children. Finally, S. 3307 is fully paid for and will not add to the deficit.

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