CSEA Commends U.S. Rep. Tonko for Nutrition Bill

ALBANY, NY (12/17/2009)(readMedia)-- Yesterday, U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko introduced the Access to Nutritious Meals for Young Children Act of 2009 to update the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) by adding additional resources to pay for healthier meals and expanding the program to include more children. CACFP provides healthy, nutritious meals to 3 million children each day who are in Head Start, Early Head Start, and childcare programs in both centers and family child care homes.

"Proper nutrition is essential not only to a child's physical growth, but their intellectual growth as well," said CSEA President Danny Donohue. On behalf of the 25,000 childcare providers who recently formed a union with CSEA, we applaud Rep. Tonko for his help in improving young children's access to healthy foods in child care."

Healthy eating and good nutrition are critically important for all children and particularly important for children from infancy to age 5 as their brains are rapidly developing. This is also a key time to set health eating patterns. As our country faces a childhood obesity epidemic of 30%, CACFP plays an important role in educating children, families, and childcare providers about healthy nutrition and providing resources for at-risk children to eat healthy meals.

Family childcare provider and VOICE/CSEA member Doreen Lawson of Kingston also commented on the bill: "With parents being rushed, they are relieved to know that their child will get a healthy meal at my day care. The children are developing good eating habits because of my participation in the food program. I have been able to attend great workshops put on by my local child care council and I have even received some great recipes from them!"

The program rates, however, have not kept up with the rising costs of food and increasing costs from revisions in the Dietary Guidelines.

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