(HealthNewsDigest.com) - According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), in the U.S., more than 12 million children receive free or reduced price-breakfast at school, and more than 29.7 million receive lunches through the national school lunch program. For many, school meals are the only consistent food they get in a day, and when the school year ends, so do school meals.
However, due to nationwide school closures resulting from the coronavirus (COVID-19) spread, resources to support communities counting on feeding programs are now being threatened for an extended period of time.
The Importance of Nutrition
In September of last year, our Company and the Herbalife Nutrition Foundation launched the Nutrition for Zero Hunger global initiative, pledging an initial $2 million to help end world hunger and ensure people have access to good nutrition. The initiative focuses on providing access to healthy foods, improving nutrition education, identifying sustainable food resources and raising awareness of the global crisis.
One of the first partners who joined us in this effort was Feed the Children, a nonprofit organization sharing our commitment to defeat hunger worldwide.
As a nutrition company, we know that without adequate food and nutrition, children are unable to reach their full development potential both physically and mentally. In working with Feed the Children, we’ve learned the extent of the issue of food insecurity. The most vulnerable rely on school meals and feeding programs to survive. Those living paycheck-to-paycheck may not have savings or support systems to help them. When children are guaranteed proper health and sanitation measures, they are able to prevent and fight disease, enabling them to develop both physically and mentally into strong children who become contributing members of their communities.
As a global company providing healthy nutrition to millions of people around the world, we have a responsibility to help those in need of good nutrition, now more than ever. Disturbingly, 66 million school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world (according to the FAO), and our world is experiencing fear and uncertainty right now with the COVID-19 pandemic, as resources become scarcer. The reality is that food-insecure families, especially kids, are going to be affected more than most.
Partnering Together
In addition to programmatic support for Feed the Children, the Herbalife Nutrition Foundation has already donated $50,000 to the organization for its COVID-19 response efforts, through the Nutrition for Zero Hunger initiative. We sat down with Travis Arnold, CEO and President of Feed the Children to discuss how people can come together to help, who is working on supporting vulnerable families and communities and how can we ensure that millions who have lost access to food, don’t go hungry.
Kent Bradley (KB): How is Feed the Children
Travis Arnold (TA): Feed the Children is taking action to ensure our neighbors aren't forgotten. Eighty percent of our standard domestic work involves supplying community partners (like food pantries and soup kitchens) with the bulk of the items they need to do their daily work. This will continue. Our trucks will keep moving across the U.S. to bring support to those families who need it. We expect our work to only increase during these unprecedented times.
KB: What are Feed the Children’s goals for responding to the rising needs during COVID-19 response?
TA: Feed the Children exists with one goal - to end childhood hunger. It’s the cause that we continue to fight for every day. We understand that many Americans are facing unexpected challenges and we are working diligently with our corporate and community partners to ensure that as needs rise, children and their families continue to receive the food and supplies they need.
KB: How are these plans put into action, when the situation becomes more drastic?
TA: Through our vast network of community and corporate partners, we are continuing to work each day to ensure that no child is hungry. There are a variety of ways our community partners are delivering food and household essentials including door-to-door home delivery and drive-thru product pick-ups (food, water, hygiene items). Some community partners even have a call-in number to ensure those who are homebound or quarantined receive the items they need.
KB: How quickly can a solution be provided, and how sustainable are these plans?
TA: We are currently working to provide food and essential items to families affected by COVID-19. We are also actively exploring ways we can help with making sure students and teachers have access to education supplies and resources. However, we rely on the support of corporate partners as well as individual donors to ensure that we can continue to provide these resources during this very difficult time.
KB: Schools may be closed for several months. What are the long-term impacts and how should we be preparing to support families longer-term? What new steps need to be put in place to accommodate the extended period?
TA: According to the Food Research and Action Center, many of the children who face a nutrition gap when the school year ends also are affected disproportionately by summer learning loss. Also known as the "summer slide," this refers to the loss of academic skills and knowledge over the summer. This means these children return to school in the fall academically behind their peers and struggling to catch up before classes even begin. Feed the Children is exploring ways we can get educational resources, including books and school supplies, into the hands of children now. However, the most immediate needs that our partners are prioritizing and trying to meet are requests for food and water.
KB: Food insecurity increases in the summer when children are out of school and no longer receive a guaranteed lunch. How has the impact of COVID-19 escalated food insecurity vs. what we see in the summer?
TA: We have already started our summer efforts in March due to this crisis. Given that we will likely be doing this for nine full weeks, like we do in the summer, I think it is reasonable to say we will need 800,000 more meals to meet the need during this time.
The issue with this is it is not just kids that rely on school lunch necessarily but all kids who can no longer access food because of stay-at home-orders or other reasons related to controlling the outbreak. The issue has always been access, and unfortunately, the access is so limited during this time that all partners have to think innovatively to meet the challenge.
KB: How does support from corporate partners and other donations play a role?
TA: At Feed the Children we rely on public and private partners to ensure everyone, everywhere, has access to the safe, healthy and nutritious food they need. These partnerships allow us to provide food and essentials, education initiatives, and disaster response to those in need.
For those who would like to help Feed the Children in their efforts by donating cash visit www.feedthechildren.org
About Dr. Kent Bradley, M.D., MBA, MPH – Chief Health and Nutrition Officer, Herbalife Nutrition
Kent Bradley, M.D., MPH, MBA, is the chief health and nutrition officer at Herbalife Nutrition and chairman of the Herbalife Nutrition Advisory Board. Dr. Bradley is responsible for nutrition and product education and training for the Company, including developing educational tools and learning platforms for distributors to ensure they receive ongoing training to deliver a best-in-class customer experience tailored to each individual’s needs.
Prior to joining Herbalife Nutrition, Dr. Bradley held senior executive roles in the public and private sector. He is the former President of Safeway Health, a health technology solution and service provider supporting total worker health strategies for large commercial clients. He also served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Safeway, a company with $44 billion in annual revenue and 185,000 employees.
Dr. Bradley serves on numerous boards, including the Board of Directors for CommonSpirit Health – one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States, and the Board of Directors of Concentra Health – the largest occupational health provider in the U.S. with over 400 clinics. He is actively involved in multiple community health and wellbeing initiatives and founded Core Communities, a nonprofit supporting healthy communities, by creating compelling content that encourages conversations on important issues. He has served as a strategic advisor to multiple health technology companies with a special focus on consumer engagement.
Dr. Bradley is a retired Army Colonel, graduate of the United States Military Academy and has a master’s in public health from the University of Minnesota, an executive Master of Business Administration from the University of Denver, and his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland. He is board certified in Public Health and Preventive Medicine and holds a certificate in Corporate Governance from INSEAD.
About Travis Arnold, CEO and President, Feed the Children
Travis Arnold has served as president and CEO of Feed the Children since 2017 after extensive service to the organization in multiple leadership roles. Arnold has a broad and varied background of experience in operations, transportation and executive leadership. The Oklahoma native joined Feed the Children in 2001 after serving more than 20 years in a variety of management positions with United Parcel Service (UPS).
Prior to becoming president and CEO, Arnold served as Feed the Children’s chief operating officer from 2006 to 2017. While COO, he served three separate terms as interim president and CEO of the nonprofit, ensuring continuity and focus on the organization’s philanthropic mission through periods of change.
Since 2018, Arnold has served on the Oklahoma Advisory Committee for the United States Global Leadership Conference (USGLC). The committee consists of leading business, faith, nonprofit and military leaders who stand up and say our role in the world is important and we should not diminish diplomatic programs at our U.S. State Department.