Child Nutrition Act

The Child Nutrition Act (CNA) is a United States federal law signed on October 11, 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Act was created as a result of the "years of cumulative successful experience under the National School Lunch Program" to help meet the nutritional needs of children.

The act established the School Breakfast Program, a federally assisted meal program that provides low-cost or free breakfasts to children in public and non-profit schools as well as child care institutions. During the signing of the act, the president remarked that "good nutrition is essential to good learning."

It should be noted that the Free Breakfast for Children Program was a program started by the Black Panther Party in the 1960s. The Panthers would cook and serve food to the poor inner city youth of the area; Initially run out of a San Francisco church, which fed thousands of children throughout the party's history. The Program was so popular that within a couple of years they were feeding over 10,000 school children in the morning before they went to school. It is believed by many former Panthers and by many on the Radical Left that the huge success of the Free Breakfast for Children program "shamed" the Johnson administration into providing free breakfasts in public schools through the federally funded School Breakfast Program.

Under the provisions of the act, the Special Milk Program, functioning since 1954, was extended to June 30, 1970 and incorporated into the act. The act also provided Federal funding assistance towards non-food purchases for school equipment.