Pennsylvania has changed policy to increase the availability of federal food subsidies to low-income children who are in child care with relatives and neighbors.

“We see this as an important program because it would give kids of low income access to nutrition to healthy food,” said Kate Scully, policy analyst at the Center for Hunger Free Communities at Drexel University

Extending the program will improve the nutrition and health of these low-income children. A policy brief by the nonpartisan research center Children’s HealthWatch, in 2010 showed that children participating in the federal program were far less likely to be in fair or poor health or to be hospitalized and were more likely to have a healthy height and weight.