I 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 5308 
To amend section 9A of the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch 
Act to require that local school wellness policies include a requirement 
that students receive 50 hours of school nutrition education per school 
year. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 21, 2021 
Mr. CARTWRIGHT (for himself, Mr. CASE, Mrs. HAYES, Mr. LOWENTHAL, Ms. 
MOORE of Wisconsin, Mr. PETERS, and Ms. SCANLON) introduced the 
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Education and 
Labor 
A BILL 
To amend section 9A of the Richard B. Russell National 
School Lunch Act to require that local school wellness 
policies include a requirement that students receive 50 
hours of school nutrition education per school year. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Nutrition Education 
Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
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(1) Section 9A of the Richard B. Russell Na-
tional School Lunch Act (42 U.S.C. 1758b) requires 
all local educational agencies participating in a pro-
gram authorized by the Richard B. Russell National 
School Lunch Act (42 U.S.C. 1751 et seq.) or the 
Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1771 et 
seq.) to establish a local school wellness policy for 
schools under the jurisdiction of local educational 
agencies that include nutrition promotion and edu-
cation. However, there are no specific requirements 
regarding the amount of time or type of classes that 
school children have to spend or take in nutrition 
education. 
(2) Some schools include in their health edu-
cation classes some general information about nutri-
tion, but there are no specific guidelines of what the 
minimum requirements should be. The mean number 
of hours spent on nutrition education in the first 4 
years of school is only 13 hours per year. A min-
imum of 50 hours per year are thought to be nec-
essary to influence behavior. 
(3) Each local educational agency participating 
in a program authorized by the Richard B. Russell 
National School Lunch Act (42 U.S.C. 1751 et seq.) 
or the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1771 
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et seq.) should have a minimum requirement for 
amount of time per year students should spend on 
nutrition education and the type of instruction that 
should be provided as part of such education. 
SEC. 3. SCHOOL NUTRITION EDUCATION REQUIREMENT. 
(a) AMENDMENTS.—Section 9A(b) of the Richard B. 
Russell National School Lunch Act (42 U.S.C. 1758b(b)) 
is amended— 
(1) in paragraph (1), by striking ‘‘nutrition 
promotion and education, physical activity,’’ and in-
serting ‘‘physical activity’’; 
(2) by redesignating paragraphs (2) through 
(5) as paragraphs (3) through (6), respectively; and 
(3) by inserting after paragraph (1), the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(2) a requirement for 50 hours of school nutri-
tion education during a school year for each student 
at a school under the jurisdiction of the local edu-
cational agency, which includes instruction that— 
‘‘(A) is consistent with sections 9 and 17 
of this Act, and sections 4 and 10 of the Child 
Nutrition Act of 1966 (42 U.S.C. 1773, 1779); 
‘‘(B) is offered at each grade level as part 
of a sequential, comprehensive, standards-based 
program designed to provide students with the 
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knowledge and skills necessary to promote and 
protect their health; 
‘‘(C) is part of not only health education 
classes, but is also encouraged to be incor-
porated into classroom instruction in subjects 
such as math, science, language arts, social 
sciences, and elective subjects; 
‘‘(D) includes enjoyable, developmentally 
appropriate, culturally relevant, participatory 
activities, such as contests, promotions, taste 
testing, farm visits, and school gardens; 
‘‘(E) promotes fruits, vegetables, whole 
grain products, low-fat and fat-free dairy prod-
ucts, healthy food preparation methods, and 
health-enhancing nutrition practices; 
‘‘(F) emphasizes caloric balance between 
food intake and energy expenditure; 
‘‘(G) coordinates with school meal pro-
grams, other school foods programs, and nutri-
tion-related community services; 
‘‘(H) teaches media literacy with an em-
phasis on food marketing; 
‘‘(I) provides training for teachers and 
other staff in nutrition education; and 
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‘‘(J) establishes a process to evaluate the 
effectiveness of the requirements of school nu-
trition education described in subparagraphs 
(A) through (I);’’. 
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by 
subsection (a) shall take effect at the beginning of the 
school year following the date of the enactment of this Act, 
but not earlier than 3 months after the date of the enact-
ment of this Act. 
Æ 
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