미국 조지타운 대학교 연구진이 국가 학교급식 프로그램과 국가보건 면접조사 자료를 분석했습니다. 그 결과 무상급식이 아이들의 건강을 향상시킨다는 증거는 발견하지 못했지만 학업 성취도를 올리는데 효과가 있는 것으로 나타났습니다. 연구결과는 미국의 학술지 ‘정책 분석과 관리(Journal of Policy Analysis and Management)’에 실렸습니다. 다음은 긴 논문의 요약부분이랍니다.   The Effects of the National School Lunch Program on Education and Health* Peter Hinrichs† January 7, 2010 Abstract: This paper estimates the effects of participating in the National School Lunch Program in the middle of the 20th century on health outcomes as an adult and on educational attainment. I utilize an instrumental variables strategy that exploits a change in the formula used by the federal government to allocate funding to the states. Identification is achieved by the fact that different birth cohorts were exposed to different degrees to the original formula and the new formula, along with the fact that the change of the formula affected states differentially by per capita income. Participation in the program as a child appears to have few long-run effects on health, but the effects on educational attainment are sizable. These results may suggest that subsidized lunches induced children to attend school but displaced food consumption from other sources. Alternatively, the program may have had short-run health effects that dissipated over time but that facilitated higher educational attainment. Keywords: child nutrition, federal health programs, historical health evaluations JEL Classification: H51, H52, I18, I28