Consistent with the intent of the original school-lunch program, created by Congress in 1946 to provide "nutritious agricultural commodities" to children, the major purpose of today's school-lunch program is to ensure that children, especially those from poor and low-income families, have nutritious food at school. Even as contentious and partisan budget authorization battles last year stalled such popular programs as Head Start and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Congress approved increases in child nutrition programs. It was not all smooth sailing, however. Most of the debate, heated at times, focused on issues of income verification for people receiving free lunches, vending machines, and obesity. If income verification threatens to impose economic burdens on the school lunch program, the debate over vending machines feeds the growing fight over childhood obesity. Ironically, given that the original goal of child nutrition programs was to ensure that poor children received enough to eat, the school lunch program, when not being accused of helping spread the disease, is now being called on to cure obesity. The school-lunch reauthorization bill enacted by Congress last year contained a host of measures to improve nutrition, such as encouraging the Department of Agriculture to make more fresh fruits and vegetables available to local schools, creating an initiative to encourage partnerships between schools and local produce farms, and increasing the availability of whole grains in school meals. (Contains 2 figures.)