The Child and Adult Care Food Program: Who is Served and What are Their Nutritional Outcomes?

Abstract

This paper addresses three basic questions about an under-studied food subsidy program, the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP): (1) Does CACFP reach targeted low-income children? (2) How do eligible families and child care providers who participate differ from those who do not participate? (3) What is the association between attending CACFP-participating child care and children's food intake, weight, and food security? We use the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort to examine these questions for a representative sample of young children and their providers. We find that program eligibility rules leave many poor children outside the CACFP program. Yet, among poor preschoolers in center-based care, participation in the program is correlated with positive outcomes such as increased consumption of milk and vegetables, and healthier weight (BMI). We discuss the implications of our findings, especially in relation to other food and child care subsidy programs.

Connecting Families to Food Resources amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Early Care and Education Providers in Two U.S. States

“…CACFP participating sites were also more likely to serve children and families with food insecurity than non-CACFP participating sites [ 16 , 36 ]. CACFP participating sites may have been responding to a greater need for continued food access experienced by the families they serve.…”

The Child and Adult Care Food Program and Food Insecurity

“…This method relies on the assumption that the researcher is able to observe the main variables that influence the probability of CACFP participation. Additional covariates included in the propensity score regressions that have been shown to be associated with CACFP participation (Gordon et al 2010) include if the child care provider operates as a for-profit organization (versus a non-profit organization), if the child care provider is licensed, if the child care provider accepts state subsidies, if the child care provider is accredited and if the child is in care more than 30 hours or more. The propensity score, p, is an estimate for the conditional probability of finding the child who participated in CAFP given a set of covariates.…”

“…Previous research on CACFP has focused on modeling participation in CACFP at the provider level (Kapur, Kilburn and Fair 1999) and child level (Gordon et al 2010). Participation is more likely among poor children who reside in low-income areas than among poor children in wealthier areas as well as among children who spend more time in care with lower socioeconomic status.…”

“…Participation is more likely among poor children who reside in low-income areas than among poor children in wealthier areas as well as among children who spend more time in care with lower socioeconomic status. Providers are more likely to participate if they are large, licensed, accredited, non-profit and connected to Head Start (Gordon et al 2010). Significant variation in participation among eligible providers by state also exists (Kapur, Kilburn and Fair 1999).…”

“…Prior literature has largely neglected the contributions of the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) to household food security. There are few studies that evaluate the impact of participation in CACFP on child and household food security (Gordon et al 2010;Korenman et al 2012). This is surprising given the impact that nutritional inadequacy can exert on early developmental processes.…”