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School meal programs have positive effects on student nutrition and academic outcomes, but participation is far from universal. A set of recent school food policies, such as Universal Free Meals (UFM) and Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC), aim to reduce the administrative burden of participating students. While studies find UFM and BIC are effective in increasing participation, little is known about how schools’ physical capacity constraints may limit the effectiveness of these policies or further impose administrative burden. In this study, we use longitudinal school-level data from New York City public schools for academic years 2010–2014 and find that UFM is less effective in schools that share buildings with other schools (“co-located”), especially for low-income students. BIC, however, appears to be similarly effective regardless of school co-location status, suggesting that decentralizing locations for school meal distribution and consumption may serve as an effective policy lever in capacity-constrained settings. We find “overcrowding,” another capacity constraint, does not moderate the effectiveness of either UFM or BIC. Our study provides new evidence of physical barriers in public school settings that may impede policies that aim to increase take-up of school meal programs and the extent to which this burden is unevenly borne by low-income students, which in turn may result in inequitable nutritional, health, and academic outcomes.
