Feeding children is a proven way of increasing the educational attainment, and by extension in the long run enables more (future) parents to prosper.

Handouts are great and make our community better! I like taking handouts, and I love when the community, through guaranteed services, provides help taking care of my family.

I love the government handouts that pay for road maintenance right up to my home. And bus service so I don’t need to buy a car. I also love the public library near me, which is a handout that gives my community a rich place to go and participate in arts and reading groups without requiring me to spend a penny!

Handouts can help people prosper, and specifically children have no say in whether their parents have the means or motivation to meet their needs. We should help children prosper regardless of their parents, which means schools should provide free meals, laundry service, childcare for students’ younger siblings, etc. What “different means” would help students prosper than ensuring their needs are met?

> Nobody like taking handouts and they'd much rather take care of their own families instead.

Interesting; what are the sample size and 95% confidence intervals on the study you're citing?

> Help them prosper via various different means

Erm... that's exactly what's happening? This is not the entirety of the UK's economic policy.

And let children go to school without food ? Sometimes the short term solution is necessary

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> Nobody like taking handouts and they'd much rather take care of their own families instead.

This hypothesis has been demonstrably untrue for a long time now. UN reports from 2019-2022 consistently found Finland and Denmark to be the two happiest countries on Earth [1] and their governments provide some of the strongest welfare programs of any country [2].

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model#Nordic_welfare_...