Abstract:
In 2024, Canada’s federal government committed $1 billion toward a national school food program to increase food access for children and youth. The current provincial policies focus on nutrition standards while neglecting feeding relationships, which raises questions about their effectiveness. This policy analysis examines how Ontario school food frameworks could include care-based feeding using a School Food Care framework that is adapted from Black and Byun’s (2025) multi-level theory of food care and Satter’s (2007) Division of Responsibility. Analysis reveals that current policies privilege measurable nutrition outcomes and efficiency over care relationships, creating structural conditions that leave open space for practices that undermine children’s food autonomy and reproduce existing power imbalances. While this interpretation requires further empirical validation, this paper offers policy recommendations that include revising procedures to specify responsive feeding practices as pedagogical care work.

Keywords:
care work, feminized labour, full-day kindergarten, Ontario, responsive feeding, school food policy