Report: Too few eligible Ore. students are accessing school meals

Only 37 percent of Oregon students eligible for free or reduced-price meals eat school breakfast, a new report shows.

The 2015 Healthy School Food Report Card—released Wednesday by Upstream Public Health, the American Heart Association and Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon—highlights the state’s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to providing meals and promoting healthy nutrition.

Key findings of the report indicate that although 95 percent of Oregon schools offer breakfast programs, only about one-third of eligible kids eat school breakfast.

The report concludes that Oregon has done a lot to improve the nutritional quality of school food, such as providing $4.5 million in funding for farm-to-school programs, but notes that further efforts are needed.

Oregon schools should limit marketing of junk food, make drinking water more attractive and better promote school breakfast programs, it states.

“With the release of this report card, we are calling on legislators and school administrators to keep working until only healthy foods are served or promoted at Oregon schools, and to ensure that all kids get the nutrition they need to thrive,” Mel Rader, executive director of Upstream Public Health, said in a release.