Breaking the BMI monotony: an empirical analysis of the effects of China’s school feeding program and policy implications for Africa

School feeding programs (SFPs) have been extensively implemented as a public policy investment aimed at fostering the development of children across various countries. This study evaluated the impact of the implementation of SFPs on the physical development of school-age children in rural China using a data set comprising over 400 thousand observations. It was found that participation in the Nutrition Improvement Program (NIP) in China promoted the development of height and weight of children in rural schools, and reduced the gap in growth between urban and rural schoolchildren. However, the physical examination performance of children in rural schools was better than that of children in urban schools, and this advantage is gradually expanding with the increase of participation time. This research provides insights for the development and evaluation of SFPs in African countries, including the importance of long-term program participation, targeted interventions to address regional disparities and the use of comprehensive evaluation measures such as physical examination performance. These results provide a framework for enhancing SFPs in Africa, supporting their role in addressing malnutrition, improving education outcomes and driving long-term socioeconomic development.