About This Webinar
Hunger doesn’t stop at a growling stomach — it follows students into the classroom.
Food insecurity affects far more than physical health; it shapes children’s social, emotional, and behavioral development and directly interferes with learning. Research shows that students experiencing food insecurity are more likely to struggle with classroom engagement, social skills, and mental health challenges. The good news? Access to federal nutrition programs, such as school meals, can significantly reduce food insecurity and help students thrive.
With recent cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid and the rising cost of living, ensuring children have consistent access to nutritious food is more urgent than ever. Educators are often the first to notice when students are struggling, and they play a critical role in connecting children and families to vital supports.
In this session, participants will explore the scope of childhood food insecurity, understand how hunger impacts learning and development, learn practical strategies to increase students’ access to nutritious foods, and discover how educators can advocate for students’ health and well-being, so every child can come to school nourished, focused, and ready to learn.
This summary provided by ON24 AI:
The webinar outlined the scale and classroom impact of child food insecurity—affecting roughly 14 million children—and emphasized that hunger often shows up as anxiety, difficulty concentrating, irritability, or behavior changes rather than obvious signs.
Presenters from FRAC highlighted how rising living costs, immigration-related fear, and major recent cuts to SNAP and Medicaid are increasing risk, while federal child nutrition programs remain proven “cycle breakers” that improve diet quality, health, attendance, and academic outcomes. Key solutions include expanding Healthy School Meals for All and the Community Eligibility Provision to reduce stigma and close eligibility gaps, and boosting participation through “breakfast after the bell” models such as in-classroom breakfast.
The session also stressed closing the nutrition gap outside the school day by scaling after-school suppers, summer meal sites (including rural non-congregate options), and Summer EBT, alongside practical actions educators can take: normalize and promote benefits, help families enroll in SNAP and school meals, partner with food service teams to expand access, model participation, integrate meals into learning, and advocate for reversing SNAP cuts and advancing national universal school meals legislation.
Want more sessions to choose from? Check out all of the free, for-credit webinars in Share My Lesson's Summer of Learning 2026 series.
