TIME, September 19, 2016: An Abbreviated History of School Lunch in America

"In the decades after, the programs expanded to feed more children in more ways. Eisenhower and Nixon both increased the budgets for school lunch programs while the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 added more subsidies for low-income children, as well as school milk and school breakfast programs. Things changed when Ronald Reagan took office. In 1981, as part of an attempt to curtail government waste, the Reagan Administration slashed Federal school lunch spending by $1.5 billion and attempted to make up for the reduced budget by shrinking lunch portions, reducing the number of poor children eligible for free or reduced-lunch, and famously declaring that ketchup was a vegetable in order to meet nutrition standards. With less federal support, school lunches in the 1980s and 1990s became increasingly privatized and nutrition standards often took a back seat to the bottom line. This same period saw childhood obesity rates in the United States skyrocket. School lunches were thrust to the forefront of the debate over healthy kids. The patchwork of regulation remaining regarding food safety and wholesomeness led TIME to declare that many school districts were ‘flunking lunch.’”