Abstract
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) placed strict nutritional mandates on meals served at U.S. public schools. This policy offers a unique opportunity to study household response to a large, exogenous change in healthiness of food available to their children. Did more healthy school meals lead households to substitute towards them, and away from grocery food purchases? Which households were more responsive to the nutritional mandates? And was there any spillover effect on the nutritional quality of their grocery food purchases? We document a meaningful decrease in the quantity of grocery food in response to the HHFKA, and a small decrease in quality. Consistent with substitution towards school meals, more of the quantity decrease is attributable to items likely to be purchased for children and categories traditionally associated with breakfast and lunch (the meals served at school). The HHFKA attracted even greater participation from financially and time constrained households for whom school meals were already important and were now coupled with the additional benefit of healthier food. These findings have important implications for policy makers and researchers, but also for food manufacturers and retailers.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callSimilar Papers
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
