The right to eat at school

There are rights that, once universalized, stop being debated. No one asks today if you have to have contributed enough to have the right to be treated in a public hospital. But until 1986, that was exactly the case. The general health law promoted by Ernest Lluch changed this logic: health ceased to be a benefit linked to contributions to become a right of citizenship. This year marks forty years since that law, and the Ernest Lluch Foundation —of which I am a patron— has received the Creu de Sant Jordi. But, beyond all that that reform achieved —and what remains pending—, there is a fundamental idea that we have not yet managed to extend to other areas.Forty years later, we have another debate about universalization. Coverage for everyone of the school canteen —today a service that depends on whether families can afford it or if they can prove they are in a situation of poverty or social exclusion— has made its way to Parliament. The fundamental question is the same as in 1986: to whom does this right belong?We lead the rankings for child poverty in Europe. More than 7% of children do not have a minimum intake of proteins guaranteed every two days, a figure that has not stopped growing in recent years. At the same time, almost three out of ten children are overweight, above the European average. Two pieces of data that seem contradictory, but which share the same explanation: income. Malnutrition due to poverty today is not going hungry. It is eating badly: ultra-processed, caloric, and nutritionally empty products.And here is where the logic of lunch grants shows its limits. If the problem of child poverty is structural, the solution cannot depend on demonstrating that you are poor enough to deserve aid. The dining space cannot be social assistance. It is part of the school day —children spend about a third of their time there in primary school—, and education is a guaranteed right for everyone. Furthermore, targeted policies have a hidden cost: they stigmatize, generate bureaucracy and can end up weakening the social support that sustains them. Universality, on the other hand, builds rights.It is not a Scandinavian utopia: it is a European reality. Finland has been guaranteeing a daily hot meal for all its pupils for seventy-five years. But now so do Croatia and Slovenia —by the way, with broad parliamentary consensus and with a notable citizen impulse—. London also did not wait for the unproductive British government and has already served more than 100 million universal school meals. The international evidence is overwhelming: the benefits in health, education and equality far outweigh the initial investment.In 1986 we decided that health could not depend on income. Now it is time to decide the same about school meals.