Canada's missed opportunity to implement publicly funded school meal programs in the 1940s.

Unlike many other countries, Canada does not have a publicly funded school lunch program. Instead, parents are responsible for feeding their children during school hours, and charitable organizations attempt to fill gaps for children living in poverty. Canadian activists have mounted a campaign for a federally funded school meal program to address numerous issues affecting children's health, including an 'obesity crisis.' Our examination of the historical record suggests contemporary school meal advocates are in a position similar to the early 1940s, when there was great public concern about a 'crisis of malnutrition' that was undermining the strength of the nation. There was widespread support for a federally funded school meal program as part of a social democratic vision for a 'social minimum' to support Canadians' well-being. However, the federal government adopted only one of many recommendations for a social minimum, the Family Allowance, which provided monthly cash payments to families. The 1940s campaign for federally funded school meals fizzled because the federal government saw the Family Allowance as an adequate solution to the problem of child malnutrition and, in keeping with its liberal welfare state ideology, preferred to keep responsibility for children's well-being with the family, not the state. In addition, the scientific consensus about the constitution of malnutrition shifted, an important pilot test studying school meals' nutritional benefits provided inconclusive results, and a key advocate died. The historical record supports Crenshaw's contention that demands for change that are outside the dominant ideology are rarely adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]