Universal Free School Meals reduce child obesity and improve children’s reading scores

Summary

We study the impacts of providing Universal Free School Meals (UFSM), as opposed to means-tested Free School Meals (FSM), on primary school children’s take-up of school meals, educational attainment, health and household finances. We focus on four London local authorities that rolled out UFSM to all primary-age children: Newham (from academic year-ending 2010), Islington (2011), Southwark (2012) and Tower Hamlets (2014), and study how outcomes evolved in these local authorities, compared to local authorities in the rest of London or across England that did not run UFSM schemes. See more detailed results and methodology in our full project report at https://iser.beta-understandingsociety.co.uk/ files/misoc/reports/Impact-of-the-UFSM-schemesin-England.pdf.