The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The FNS is the federal agency responsible for administering the nation’s domestic nutrition assistance programs. The service helps to address the issue of hunger in the United States.
A school meal is a meal provided to students and sometimes teachers at a school, typically in the middle or beginning of the school day. Countries around the world offer various kinds of school meal programs, and altogether, these are among the world's largest social safety nets. An estimated 380 million school children around the world receive meals at their respective schools. The extent of school feeding coverage varies from country to country, and as of 2020, the aggregate coverage rate worldwide is estimated to be 27%.
Health education is a profession of educating people about health. Areas within this profession encompass environmental health, physical health, social health, emotional health, intellectual health, and spiritual health, as well as sexual and reproductive health education.
Health promotion is, as stated in the 1986 World Health Organization (WHO) Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, the "process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve their health."
Food policy is the area of public policy concerning how food is produced, processed, distributed, purchased, or provided. Food policies are designed to influence the operation of the food and agriculture system balanced with ensuring human health needs. This often includes decision-making around production and processing techniques, marketing, availability, utilization, and consumption of food, in the interest of meeting or furthering social objectives. Food policy can be promulgated on any level, from local to global, and by a government agency, business, or organization. Food policymakers engage in activities such as regulation of food-related industries, establishing eligibility standards for food assistance programs for the poor, ensuring safety of the food supply, food labeling, and even the qualifications of a product to be considered organic.
Nutritional rating systems are used to communicate the nutritional value of food in a more-simplified manner, with a ranking, than nutrition facts labels. A system may be targeted at a specific audience. Rating systems have been developed by governments, non-profit organizations, private institutions, and companies. Common methods include point systems to rank foods based on general nutritional value or ratings for specific food attributes, such as cholesterol content. Graphics and symbols may be used to communicate the nutritional values to the target audience.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) provide nutritional advice for Americans who are healthy or who are at risk for chronic disease but do not currently have chronic disease. The Guidelines are published every five years by the US Department of Agriculture, together with the US Department of Health and Human Services. Notably, the most recent ninth edition for 2020–25 includes dietary guidelines for children from birth to 23 months. In addition to the Dietary Guidelines per se, there are additional tools for assessing diet and nutrition, including the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), which can be used to assess the quality of a given selection of foods in the context of the Dietary Guidelines. Also provided are additional explanations regarding customization of the Guidelines to individual eating preferences, application of the Guidelines during pregnancy and infancy, the USDA Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review, information about the Nutrition Communicators Network and the MyPlate initiative, information from the National Academies about redesigning the process by which the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are created, and information about dietary guidelines from other nations.
FareShare is an Australian not-for-profit food rescue organisation that operates Australia's largest charity kitchens located in Melbourne and Brisbane. Its mission is to mobilise volunteers to cook delicious, free meals from rescued, donated and homegrown ingredients to improve the lives of Australians in hardship.
The Older Americans Act of 1965 was the first federal level initiative aimed at providing comprehensive services for older adults. It created the National Aging Network comprising the Administration on Aging on the federal level, State Units on Aging at the state level, and Area Agencies on Aging at the local level. The network provides funding—based primarily on the percentage of an area's population 60 and older—for nutrition and supportive home and community-based services, disease prevention/health promotion services, elder rights programs, the National Family Caregiver Support Program, and the Native American Caregiver Support Program.
The Kenosha County Division of Health is the local agency tasked with monitoring and improving the health and wellbeing of the citizens of Kenosha County, Wisconsin. Their mission statement is "to assure the delivery of health services necessary to prevent disease, maintain and promote health, and to protect and preserve a healthy environment for all citizens of Kenosha County regardless of ethnic origin, cultural and economic resources."
Let's Move! is a public health campaign in the United States led by former First Lady Michelle Obama. The campaign aimed to reduce childhood obesity and encourage a healthy lifestyle in children.
Nutrition education is a set of learning experiences designed to assist in healthy eating choices and other nutrition-related behavior. It includes any combination of educational strategies, accompanied by environmental supports, designed to facilitate voluntary adoption of food choices and other food and nutrition-related behaviors conducive to health and well-being. Nutrition education is delivered through multiple venues and involves activities at the individual, community, and policy levels. Nutrition Education also critically looks at issues such as food security, food literacy, and food sustainability.
The Childhood Obesity Task Force is a United States Government task force charged with reducing childhood obesity in the United States. It was founded on February 9, 2010, by the Obama Administration through a Presidential Memorandum, announcing the establishment of a Task Force on Childhood Obesity. The Task Force aims to develop a plan to reduce childhood obesity. In the announcement, President Barack Obama highlighted the statistics on childhood obesity in the United States and outlined the steps that this new task force would be taking to end childhood obesity. Section 1 of the Memorandum states:
There is established a Task Force on Childhood Obesity to develop an interagency action plan to solve the problem of obesity among our Nation's children within a generation. The Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy shall serve as Chair of the Task Force.
The Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) is a federal assistance program in the United States associated with the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children that provides fresh, unprepared, locally grown fruits and vegetables and nutrition education to WIC participants. Women, infants and children that have been certified to receive WIC program benefits or who are on a waiting list for WIC certification are eligible to participate in the FMNP.
School meals are provided free of charge, or at a government-subsidized price, to United States students from low-income families. These free or subsidized meals have the potential to increase household food security, which can improve children's health and expand their educational opportunities. A study of a free school meal program in the United States found that providing free meals to elementary and middle school children in areas characterized by high food insecurity led to increased school discipline among the students.
City Harvest is one of New York City's largest food rescue organizations. The organization collects food waste from restaurants, bakeries, and cafes.
The National Mental Health Commission (the Commission) is an Australian Government executive agency established in 2012 to provide robust policy advice and evidence on ways to improve Australia’s mental health and suicide prevention system, and to act as a catalyst for change to achieve those improvements through monitoring and reporting on investment in mental health and suicide prevention initiatives and ongoing engagement with stakeholders across the mental health and related sectors. The Commission's role is purely advisory and does not advocate for specific individuals or groups, but for better system outcomes and accountability.
The Queensland Country Women's Association (QCWA) is the Queensland chapter of the Country Women's Association in Australia. The association seeks to serve the interests of women and children in rural areas in Australia through a network of local branches. Established in 1922, local branches provide friendship and mutual support to their members while contributing to the betterment of life in their local communities. Over time, many branches have evolved to include support for wider issues such as domestic violence campaigns and fund-raising for international initiatives such as orphanages.
The Indianapolis Community Food Access Coalition (ICFAC) is a commitment by the city of Indianapolis, Indiana, to prioritize policies and activities to ensure affordable and equitable access to healthy and nutritious food for all residents. The Coalition was created through an Indianapolis Ordinance 337 in November 2020.
