Why Covid-19 Threatens Military Readiness — and How School Lunch Can Help

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on this nation is more far-reaching than any single event I’ve witnessed. Regardless of age, race, socioeconomic station or other demographic distinctions, Americans are feeling the effects and are being asked to take unusual or unprecedented measures that are reminiscent of wartime-like sacrifices.

At the same time that the virus has affected all of us, it has struck a particular blow against our most vulnerable populations, especially our nation’s youth, by worsening the risk of food insecurity.

This ongoing struggle with childhood malnutrition and food insecurity concerns me, not just as an American, but also as a retired military leader. The military has a deep and long-standing history of interest in the nutrition of our nation’s youth. Following World War II, when the armed forces had to reject as many as 40 percent of recruits due to malnutrition, military leaders urged Congress to create a national school lunch program. President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act into law in 1946 to “safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children, and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other foods.”

Prolonged food insecurity can have devastating consequences. One of the most common is obesity brought on by malnutrition—eating unhealthy foods because healthy foods aren’t available. Today, obesity is the most frequent medical disqualifier for those seeking to serve in the military. In fact, as the retired admirals and generals I work with in the national nonprofit Mission: Readiness have been highlighting for a decade, 71 percent of recruiting-age Americans nationwide can’t qualify for military service.

While the form that malnutrition takes is different today than it was in the 1940s, the role of schools in improving nutrition is just as crucial now as it was during the Truman administration. Schools are a key vector for providing nutrition and promoting the military readiness of our nation’s fighting forces because, for many of our nation’s children, school and summer meals are their only healthy, balanced, and nutritious meal of the day.

But the closure of schools because of Covid-19 has exposed the vulnerability of this system. Schools throughout the United States are continuing to prepare and distribute food, but they are facing increased costs and other challenges because of the pandemic: the costs of additional protective gear for workers, additional packaging, and added costs and transportation limitations associated with distribution.

And with summer beginning, the situation is about to get worse.

In order to support children and families who depend on school meals, the United States Department of Agriculture funds federal summer nutrition programs, administered by designated agencies in each state. Most programs serve meals using the Summer Food Service Program. All children ages 18 and younger who visit an approved SFSP site can receive meals that meet federal nutrition standards. The program provides federal funding to schools and nonprofits to ensure children who live in low-income areas receive fresh and nutritious foods during school holidays, weekends, after school, and during the summer.

Congress passed legislation earlier in the pandemic acknowledging the importance of school and summer food programs and providing some regulatory flexibility, but it did not increase funding. Meanwhile, the disruption to daily life caused by the pandemic has illuminated some of the existing, systemic shortcomings of the summer meal program.

For example, many of these programs operate in congregate meal sites, which are meals served in a centralized group setting, such as a cafeteria or community center. The use of congregate meal sites can reduce access for children if there isn’t also transportation provided to and from these sites. Even worse, current social distancing guidelines are likely to extend into summer in some areas, potentially reducing or eliminating the availability of congregate meal service. This reduced availability means that school lunch programs will seriously need to consider delivering meals to students' homes instead of relying on them to pick them up, which will increase program costs.

An additional challenge in providing consistent access to nutritious food during the pandemic is that the usual supply of food available to federal meal programs has been interrupted. School food-service staff may be dealing with unfamiliar suppliers or foodstuffs and will need additional training in meal preparation to ensure that meals are nutritious and balanced. Finally, a lack of meals provided through these federal programs is impacting family finances at a time when budgets may already be stretched thin, further limiting access to fresh and nutritious foods.

But these problems are fixable, and, what’s more, offer an opportunity to upgrade and modernize the school and summer meals programs. Here are three things we can do to make that happen now:

First, in the next emergency supplemental package, lawmakers should include funding that allows for increased reimbursements to school districts and summer meal providers for the additional costs for delivery of meals, safe packaging for pick up or delivery, and for additional safety and sanitation supplies and equipment to sustain operations. This will keep the program running in the short term.

Next, the USDA should prioritize training and technical assistance to school and summer meal preparers. Our military is known for its responsive and continual training to be prepared to meet any challenge. Caring for our nation’s kids should be no exception. Assisting preparers to adapt to food supply constraints by learning to modify recipes with available ingredients will help them continue to provide nutritious balanced meals. Likewise, offering training to prepare hot meals for delivery and pic-up, or meals that can be reheated at home, will increase the number of kids able to eat at least one healthy, balanced meal a day.

Finally, the USDA could also target additional commodities purchases to go to school and summer meal preparers to increase their access to a fresh and nutritious food supply, while continuing cash assistance and meal reimbursements to address the rising costs of serving meals during the pandemic.

Simply put, costs for serving meals have outstripped the federal reimbursements. Through USDA food purchases, directing some of our nation’s stranded food supply to schools and summer meal programs will help programs keep operating. This step, too, during times of economic constraints, will support local preparers in consistently providing their community’s young people with meals that are balanced and nutrient rich.

These immediate solutions will help our children emerge from this pandemic strong. But, we can’t stop there. The current public health crisis has illuminated the systemic shortcomings in providing for our children’s nutritional needs in the summer.

As less than 15 percent of children receiving free or reduced-price lunch during the school year receive summer meals, the need to modernize and adapt summer meal programs is paramount. As we see innovations in transportation, meal delivery and development of non-congregate meal sites come out of necessity during the pandemic, we need to apply these innovations to the program going forward so that our nation’s kids can access fresh and nutritious foods and grow up healthy and strong.

Increased support for school and summer meal programs is vital to keeping our young people healthy during an extremely challenging time in our nation’s history. Given this situation, the youth of our nation can emerge from this crisis stronger—or weaker. The choice is ours to make, and can, in turn, not only help America recover from this pandemic in the years to come, but also bolster our national security.