Introduction
The Child and Adult Care Food Program aims to help adults and children by providing nutritious food to child and adult care institutions and family or group day care homes. CACFP provides “the provision of nutritious foods that contribute to the wellness, healthy growth, and development of young children, and the health and wellness of older adults and chronically impaired disabled persons” (United State Department of Agriculture – Food and Nutrition Service). CACFP also plays an important role to improving the access of healthy food in many institutions such as At-risk Afterschool Care Centers, Adult Day Care Centers, Child Care Centers, Day Care Homes, and Emergency Shelters. However, CACFP does not give out reimbursement for able-bodied adults in the emergency shelters. In my opinion, able-bodied adults in the emergency shelters should also have the right to receive nutritious food.
Importance of Food Quality
Before I further discuss this policy, I would like to briefly talk about the importance of food quality. Some people might wonder why can’t we just buy more cheap unhealthy food and feed more people. However, what they failed to realize is that healthy food is critical for our bodies to function properly. Moreover, when a person is not getting enough food or getting unhealthy food will cause malnutrition, which results in more serious problem such as slowing down mental development and growing diseases due to not getting enough micronutrients to meet daily nutritional requirements. As a result, it is important for the government to provide healthy food to the community institutions in order to ensures the quality of food.
How Does CACFP Work?
The way CACFP work is that the government will provide reimbursement for healthful meals and snacks served to children and adults. However, in order for community institutions to receive reimbursement, the meals they provide should meet the following requirement: breakfast should contain a serving of milk, fruit or vegetable and bread or grain product; lunch and dinner have to provide milk, bread or grain product, meat or meat alternate, and two different servings of fruits and/or vegetables. On the other hand, snacks need to “include servings from two or the four components: milk, fruits or vegetables, bread or grain product, or meat or meat alternate” (United State Department of Agriculture – Food and Nutrition Service).
Issue about the CACFP
As I mentioned earlier, CACFP does not give out reimbursement for able-bodied adults in the emergency shelters. CACFP only includes children, including teenagers 18 and younger, and persons with disabilities. However, people who become homeless are mainly due to external factors. As a result, we, as a society, should help them to get on their feet. In order to get back to work field, the first basic need is to give them healthy and nutritious food because without healthy bodies, people can’t work efficiently and productively. According to Brooks, Business News Daily Senior Writer, “Workers who ate healthful meals and exercised on a regular basis had better job performance and lower absenteeism, research from the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO), Brigham Young University and the Center for Health Research at Healthways shows: employees who eat healthy all day long were 25 percent more likely to have higher job performance, the study found, while those who eat five or more servings of fruit and vegetables at least four times a week were 20 percent more likely to be more productive” As a result, if the homeless people can work productively, the chance of stay employed would raise and thus they can help themselves out of poverty. This can also benefit the society as a whole.
Conclusion
The CACFP should include able-bodied adults in the emergency shelters because malnutrition happens to anyone at any ages, and able-bodied adults should not be excluded from eating healthily. Moreover, if the government can provide nutritious food for them, able-bodied adults can also work efficiently and productively. Thus, they can leave the poverty cycle and contribute to our economic growth.
What’s Next?
Everyone has a voice to make our society better. Whether you stand on the economic perspective or on the humane perspective, providing nutritious food to able-bodied adults in the emergency shelters is very important. As a result, please contact the agencies of CACFP in your state based on the following link to advocate for including able-bodied adults in the emergency shelters into CACFP.