Summer Nutrition and Enrichment Programs

During the summer, far too many children and adolescents experience food insecurity, weight gain, and learning loss, compromising their health and ability to thrive during summer break and beyond. A key strategy to address these issues is to connect more students — especially low-income students — to high-quality summer meal and enrichment programs, which support student food security, health, and learning.In this brief, Heather Hartline-Grafton, DrPH, RD, Senior Nutrition Policy & Research Analyst with the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC), summarizes important research on summertime food insecurity, weight gain, and learning loss, and then describes the value and effectiveness of the federal Summer Nutrition Programs and summer enrichment programming.