Stricter guidelines for school lunches lead to healthier eating

Every day, nearly 32 million students in the US are served school lunches, with more than two-thirds of these meals being free or at a reduced price. In an effort to improve nutrition and combat childhood obesity, in 2012, federal guidelines were introduced to improve the nutritional quality of the subsidised lunches. A new study has found that the guidelines are having the desired impact on healthy eating choices.

University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) assistant professor of food and resource economics Jaclyn Kropp — along with economists at Georgia State University, Clemson University and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — developed a research model to study school lunch choices children make, combining lunch sales data collected at the cafeteria register with data on student absences.

They investigated how the nutritional content of National School Lunch Program meals chosen by students varied across different socioeconomic and demographic groups and impacted their health.

When healthier menu items replaced less healthy items, researchers found the total kilojoules of the students’ lunch choices decreased by about 4%, kilojoules from fat decreased by 18% and those from sodium decreased by 8%.

“The key finding is that while students prefer less healthy school lunch options, income constraints, particularly for those students receiving free and reduced-price meals, cause these students to continue participating in the school lunch program and, hence, these students consume healthier meals,” Kropp said.

Students more likely to participate in free and reduced-price lunch programs are among the same populations most likely to suffer from obesity and related health risks, said Janet Peckham, an economist in the Office of the Commissioner at the US FDA and lead author of the study.

In another key finding, students who received free lunches were more likely to choose meals with a higher fat content and less likely to select those with higher sodium content, the study showed. Students paying full price were more likely to reject meals high in fat and choose those higher in sodium. They were also more responsive to increases in protein and more frequently replaced their cafeteria choices with lunches from home.

Federal school lunch program nutrition standards require greater availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fat-free or low-fat milk, as well as a reduction in saturated fats and sodium.

The study is published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.