School Feeding

In my profession we tend to focus on the "critical window" of nutrition for kiddos 0-2 years. This is when the effects of malnutrition are more reversible, where the biggest bang for your humanitarian health aid is found. But...what about kids that are older than that? They still are hungry too. This week I had the opportunity to attend a roundtable discussion on school feeding, mostly focused on Africa. The Honorable George McGovern, former Senator of SD and instigator of funding for school feeding domestically and abroad, was the opening speaker. At 85, he's still a very coherent statesman. It was an awe inspiring moment to hear him speak to us, a small group of 40 school feeding implementors, donors, and policy makers. He said "dollar for dollar, the best return we get on foreign aid is the education of girls." And what gets girls to school? School feeding, either in the traditional form of a cooked meal, or more likely in the form of a take home food ration for the whole family to benefit from. Perhaps a food ration offsets the home labor lost when a daughter attends school. Educated girls tend to get married later, have fewer children, are stronger socially, and potentially have a better prenatal nutritional status giving the next generation of babies a head start (birthweight wise)in life. For me it was a good reminder that food is much more than nutrition, and that hunger is worth feeding no matter the age of the person.