WASHINGTON (DTN) -- The effort has started to reauthorize federal child nutrition programs, which will almost certainly result in changes in the foods the government buys for schools and poor children.

Concern about poor nutrition and rising obesity levels in children has led to efforts to continue federal nutrition programs in schools and will influence what foods will be purchased. (DTN file photo)

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., has scheduled a hearing on the nutrition programs for Nov. 17. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who is scheduled to testify at the hearing, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan held a key meeting Friday with education and school nutrition officials.

The child nutrition programs include the school breakfast, lunch and snack programs; the women, infants and children's special nutrition program known as WIC; and some smaller food distribution programs. Under these programs, the federal government buys billions of dollars worth of foodstuffs each year or provides money to local school districts and other providers to buy food.

In his fiscal year 2010 budget request, President Barack Obama proposed an additional $1 billion per year to feed more children and improve meals. Some anti-hunger advocates say even more money is needed.

The programs are reauthorized every five years, so that Congress can determine whether the programs are meeting their goals, whether the children who need access to the food are getting it and whether the food mix should be changed. In recent years, there has been increasing concern about the content of food, because of rising obesity rates in children. Producers of calorie-dense foods, like meat and dairy products, are expected to be in a battle with fruit and vegetable producers over each group's share of the federal school meal dollar.

Congress was supposed to reauthorize the programs this year, but that effort failed, due to other business priorities. The programs expired on Sept. 30, but Congress extended the current program for one year with plans for a full, five-year reauthorization next year.

"When so many families are struggling with job losses and a poor economy, ending childhood hunger and improving child health take on even more importance," Lincoln said in a statement announcing the hearing.

Lincoln has also invited a range of Arkansas food leaders to testify. They include Dr. Margaret Bogle, executive director of the Delta Obesity Prevention Research Unit at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Little Rock, and Jennifer Smith, director of compliance for Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

After meeting with education and school nutrition groups Friday, Vilsack and Duncan said that they and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have pledged to work together to develop a comprehensive approach to improving school nutrition and reducing child obesity.

NOT JUST NUTRITION PROGRAM

With 31 million children eating school meals, "This is not just a nutrition program. It is an education and health program," Vilsack said in an interview after the meeting. Duncan added that the school meals programs have become more important during the recession, because some children "get two to three meals a day in school. Schools are where children are being fed."

Vilsack said the Obama administration proposes making the process for applying for reduced price and free meals easier while improving the food. A recent Institute of Medicine study showed that children eat too much salt and sugar and too many empty calories in school meals, Vilsack noted.

Duncan said he would promote exercise and consider making nutrition and exercise part of the criteria for awarding competitive grants to the schools. He'd also use those factors in ranking schools in awards programs. "We want to instill in young people habits that will last a lifetime," he noted.

Education and nutrition leaders said that Vilsack and Duncan promised to continue to meet with the group as they develop their recommendations to Congress. Barbara Nissel, the supervisor for food services at Great Valley School District in Malvern, Pa., said the vendors who provide school meals won't make changes in food until school districts tell vendors they won't buy foods of poor nutritional quality. School officials can't apply that pressure until they have support from federal officials and parents, she said.

Barbara Greene, director of school health programs for the National School Boards Association, said the process of improving school diets may take a while. For example, despite years of anti-smoking campaigns, not all schools are totally tobacco-free, Greene said.

Jerry Hagstrom can be reached at jerry.hagstrom@dtn.com.

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