Skip to main content
Statement

America’s Moms Cheer Signing of Historic Law to Improve Children’s School Lunches, Fight Hunger and Obesity

December 13, 2010
Youth & Family Justice

Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996

STATEMENT OF Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director, MomsRising, On the Signing of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, signed into law today by President Obama, will make a huge difference in changing the health of our nation’s children. There’s clearly something very wrong with the way food and nutrition are handled in a country when one in four kids is on the brink of hunger and one in three kids under 12 is obese or overweight. This law will help address these closely intertwined and extremely vexing issues.
 
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act has the potential to change a child’s whole day, every day, for the better. This historic law will help improve the nutritional quality of school lunches, get junk food out of school vending machines and support strong nutrition and physical activity policies and practices in schools and child care settings.
 
It’s taken us 30 years to make significant improvements in school lunches and we’re proud to have been part of the effort to accomplish this historic achievement. MomsRising members made more than 400,000 constituent contacts in less than five months to encourage Members of Congress to support the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. We are incredibly gratified to see that bill become the law of the land.
 

# # # #

MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.