What's happening
This bill requires New York schools to include instruction on food, agriculture, and nutrition as part of health education.
Why it matters
Expands health education to include practical life skills. By requiring instruction on food, agriculture, and nutrition, the bill ensures that students gain not just theoretical knowledge, but also practical understanding of how their food choices and food systems impact their health and well-being.
Aims to shape lifelong behavior and problem-solving. The curriculum must be tailored to different grade levels, with the explicit goal of developing positive attitudes, healthy behaviors, and self-reliance in students—potentially influencing their long-term health outcomes and decision-making skills.
Provides for local flexibility and relevance. The law allows school districts to adapt the curriculum to meet local needs or use their own commissioner-approved programs, making lessons more relevant to students’ communities, agricultural realities, and dietary patterns.
Mandates resources and certified teachers. Schools are required to allocate time, facilities, and appropriate learning materials, and to use certified health teachers—raising the standard and consistency of health education across the state.
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Who cares
School districts and school administrators
They would have to use a commissioner-prescribed or approved curriculum and provide facilities, instructional time, learning aids and resource materials for food, agriculture and nutrition education.
Elementary classroom teachers and certified health teachers
They would deliver the instruction, with elementary lessons tailored to pupils’ grade-level needs and abilities and secondary courses taught by certified health teachers.
Elementary and secondary students
They would receive food, agriculture and nutrition instruction as an integral part of health education, aimed at promoting healthy eating behavior.
State education commissioner
The commissioner could issue regulations and would prescribe a curriculum or approve alternatives, with content allowed to vary by district.
Headline styles
Teach Food and Nutrition
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
No co-sponsors yet.
History
- Referred to education
- Referred to education
Companion bill
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Teach Food and Nutrition
In Assembly Committee · Education · Sponsor Linda Rosenthal
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
4853
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
March 27, 2019
Introduced by Sen. PARKER -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Education
AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to instruction in food, agriculture and nutrition
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. The education law is amended by adding a new section 804-e to read as follows:
§ 804-e. Health education regarding food, agriculture and nutrition. 1. All schools shall include, as an integral part of health education, instruction on food, agriculture and nutrition to promote eating behavior that enhances the health and well-being of the students.
2. Instruction regarding food, agriculture and nutrition shall be included in the health education provided for all elementary school pupils and shall be taught by the regular classroom teachers or by teachers certified to teach health education. Such instruction shall be designed according to the needs and abilities of the pupils at successive grade levels with the purpose of developing desirable health behavior, attitudes and knowledge, as well as self-reliance and problem solving capacity.
3. Instruction regarding food, agriculture and nutrition, in addition to continued health guidance in high schools, shall be an integral part of a required health education course at each level in the secondary school's curriculum. Any such course shall be taught by teachers holding a certificate to teach health. Related courses in the secondary school curriculum shall be taught in a manner supportive of health education regarding food, agriculture and nutrition.
4. The commissioner may prescribe such regulations regarding instruction on food, agriculture and nutrition as the commissioner may deem necessary and desirable for the health and welfare of pupils and the community. The contents may be varied to meet the needs of particular
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD02588-01-9
S. 4853 2
school districts, or portions thereof, and need not be uniform throughout the state, provided, however, that school districts shall utilize either the curriculum for health education instruction regarding food, agriculture and nutrition prescribed by the commissioner or a course approved by the commissioner in accordance with criteria established by the commissioner.
5. School authorities shall provide the needed facilities, time and place for the instruction set forth in this section and shall provide learning aids and curriculum resource materials which contribute to effective teaching methods and learning in health education regarding food, agriculture and nutrition.
§ 2. This act shall take effect on the first of July next succeeding the date on which it shall have become a law.
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the education law, in relation to instruction in food, agriculture and nutrition
Purpose or general idea of bill
The purpose of this legislation is to include instruction on food, agri- culture, and nutrition in the statewide health curriculum and to promote healthy eating behavior in students.
Summary of specific provisions
The bill would amend the education law by adding new section 804-e, promulgating regulations for integrating instruction in food, agricul- ture and nutrition into the existing health curriculum.
Justification
As identified by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in a Febru- ary 2010 report entitled FoodNYC: A Blueprint for a Sustainable Food System, one in five New York City kindergarteners suffers from obesity, and similarly poor nutritional metrics can be observed in students throughout the public school system. A mandatory curriculum integrating lessons on nutrition, food and agriculture could instill healthy eating habits at an early age that would over the course of a lifetime produce better health outcomes for students that received this instruction.
Prior legislative history
2017-18: S.3290 - REFERRED TO EDUCATION 2015-16: S.1905/A.544 - Referred to Education 2013-14: S.5476/A.760 - Referred to Education 2011-12: A.1472 - Referred to Education 2010 A.10702 - Referred to Education
Fiscal implications for state and local governments
None
Effective date
This act shall take effect on the first of July next succeeding the date on which it shall have become a law.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.