Doctoral Dissertation Research: Federal Policy, Local Dynamics, and National School Lunch Programs

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Skyrocketing childhood obesity rates in the United States have helped fuel mounting public concern about the health and well being of America's children. Efforts to address childhood obesity have increasingly targeted improvements to federal school food programs that provide critical nutrition to hundreds of thousands of children, including many low-income, minority youth who have been disproportionately affected by obesity. In particular, the landmark 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) marked the first substantial changes to federal school food policy in recent years, and a growing grassroots farm-to-school movement has taken hold in cafeterias throughout the country. While previous research has traced the rich and often controversial history and development of the nation's school food programs, the time is ripe for in-depth analysis of school food politics in the aftermath of the groundbreaking changes to federal policy and increasing local school food reform activism. To this end, this dissertation explores the varying impact of the 2010 HHFKA on local school food landscapes and the complex realities of how select school districts are negotiating the terrain of school food politics in light of childhood obesity concerns. In doing so, this research contributes to our understanding of how federal policy affects school food politics on a local level, and how these dynamics affect subsequent actions and outcomes in the battle against childhood obesity. Scholars of policy processes argue that federal policies, like the HHFKA, can have lasting top-down impacts on a variety of social and political dynamics. This literature, however, tends to neglect the role of state and local actors in the implementation of federal policies, and the role of bottom-up grassroots social change efforts on policy outcomes. Through a mixed methods design, this dissertation fills this lacuna in the literature by 1) quantitatively examining how school food programs across the country vary in nature as a result of differing local contexts in the aftermath of the 2010 federal legislation, and 2) qualitatively exploring the 2010 policy impact on the local landscape of school food politics through case studies of three California school districts. Drawing on analyses of national school food data, and fieldwork consisting of interviews, observations, and archival document research, this research provides an unprecedented opportunity to expand our knowledge of contemporary school food dynamics and to contribute comprehensive scientific information to critical policy discussions surrounding childhood health and nutrition.