The school lunch initiative, which started in 1946, was meant to ensure that children from poverty-stricken households got at least one good meal a day. Over the years, though, schools began providing breakfasts, lunches, and snacks in between. Then the program expanded to include any kids who wanted to eat a school-provided meal.

The school lunch program was not meant to replace lunches for all families regardless of income, and yet that is what happened. According to the Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards, “The share of school lunches provided free or at a reduced price rose from 15 percent in 1969 to 72 percent in 2024.” The program has greatly strayed from its original purpose and turned unhealthy in more ways than one.

According to Edwards, there are no prerequisites for a parent to request free or reduced-priced lunches. Consequently, it has become a convenience for a parent whose child doesn’t need food assistance. The states have no motivation to streamline the program because the federal government covers the overhead.

But that’s not the only issue. The obesity epidemic, which has been slowly, er, ballooning for decades, can be directly linked to the quality of food we consume today. To be fair, that’s not entirely the government’s fault, but many schoolchildren simply eat the unhealthy choices and throw away what’s good for their bodies.

Furthermore, observes Edwards, “A USDA study using 2015 data found that 21.8 percent of students in the school lunch program were obese, compared with 13.4 percent not in the program.”

This is data calculated after former First Lady Michelle Obama spearheaded the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Her entire mission was to use the power of the federal government to enforce healthier lunches for kids in school. While the idea was not necessarily a bad one, tackling the obesity epidemic from a centralized point of control is not going to be effective. For the most part, Obama’s efforts are remembered with resentment by children who didn’t appreciate their new lunches.

However, Michelle’s ambitions were nothing compared to Joe Biden’s. The former “good Catholic” president exploited federal funding of school lunches in red states to enforce his LGBTQ+ agenda and rewrite Title IX. He threatened to withhold money from schools that didn’t let gender-confused boys play in girls’ sports and other such nonsense.

Of course, Republican presidents also use the practice of withholding federal money to force states to bend the knee (see Trump using it to bring Maine to heel), but centralizing control over something as critical as school lunches for legitimately needy kids is not a good leverage of power.

Finally, school lunch programs are rife with theft of federal funds. Minnesota alone had $250 million in food aid stolen. This was part of the rash of COVID-era fraud. If the program is run entirely by the states, there would be more oversight. Plus, voters would be able to see who is directly to blame for such nefarious activity.

For the sake of efficiency, good stewardship of taxpayer dollars, federalism, and accountability, school lunches should be reverted back to the states. Decentralizing the program can only benefit because, frankly, it can’t get much worse than it already is.