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The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is giving an estimated 3,000 more school districts in high-need areas the option to serve breakfast and lunch to all students at no cost, by expanding the availability of the Community Eligibility Provision, commonly known as CEP.

Offering every child – regardless of income – free breakfast and lunch at school is the best recipe for combating hunger and ensuring students get the nutrition they need to learn, according to a report released recently by the Center on American Progress, a progressive think tank.

This year, all students in Elizabethton City Schools and Carter County Schools will receive free breakfast and lunch regardless of the income of their parents.

Proper nutrition is proving to be a vital tool to improving education.

And we’re not talking about health class.

We’re talking about ensuring that all students are properly nourished so they can be at their best capacity to learn.

Students who have proper nourishment not only see their cognitive abilities, reasoning, intuition, perception and intelligence levels increase, but they also tend to have fewer absences from school, they attend classes more frequently, and they’re better behaved, according to several studies on the subject.

There’s also a social stigma attached to students who get free meals, leading to embarrassment and bullying.

One study found that the stigma prompted one-third of the income-eligible students to forego their free meals just to avoid the shame. Making free meals available to all lifts that stigma.

Having free lunch for all also benefits the district, in that it eliminates the need to administer and manage the free-low-cost lunch system, saving the expense and oversight.

All that adds up to a strong case for making nutrition a part of every child’s education.

One could legitimately argue that not all families need taxpayer-funded breakfasts and lunches because they have the means to provide meals to their children themselves. And many families do provide their children with breakfast and lunch, even with free meals available at school.

However, we are glad that state and federal officials recognize the benefits of ensuring students are properly nourished and set aside money in upcoming budgets to support the ability of school districts to offer the free meals for all students.