Several programs employed or maintained regular contact with a nutritionist to ensure that meal planning considered the specific nutritional requirements of the beneficiaries.

In addition to providing school meals during the day, WFP Cambodia established complementary health and sanitation activities that improved the overall educational environment. These activities included HIV/AIDS prevention education, the identification of safe drinking water supplies, and improvements in basic health, hygiene, and sanitation practices for students at school and at home.

Several other programs, including LOL Bangladesh, kept track of the anthropometrical measurements of the children.

Coordination with the World Health Organization for de-worming treatment improved health conditions of school children. LOL in Bangladesh and Vietnam, the government of the Dominican Republic, PCI in Bolivia and Nicaragua, and ADRA Bolivia, as well as most of the WFP projects, instituted de-worming as an integral component of their school feeding program.

As a result of the restricted diets in these areas, WFP targeted children in Bhutan who commonly suffer from micronutrient deficiencies. The USDA provision of corn-soya blend (CSB) helped to ensure that program participants’ intake of essential micronutrients corresponded with improvements in overall nutrition and health. In several schools, cooks also developed special recipes that mixed the CSB porridge with local spices and vegetables. The recipes for these student favorites are now being used in WFP’s mandatory food training sessions. Also, UNICEF and WFP are working together to pilot the fortification of school meals with iron and vitamin A in order to decrease deficiency diseases among school children.

MCI in Kyrgyzstan, CARE in Albania, and several other projects constructed and maintained clean water supply systems with GFE support. The IOCC Lebanon project improved the toilets and other sanitation facilities in participating schools.