(An item from the ISHN Member information service) Two articles in December 2013 Issue of Public Health Nutrition report on small scale studies of actual student choices about healthier food when thery are offered in school cafeterias. The first study of two large secondary schools found that "Despite the availability of nutritionally valuable dishes of the day, the most popular food items were sandwiches, pizza and desserts. FSM )free school meals) students were slightly more likely to choose the more nutritionally valuable dish of the day" The suthors suggest that ". School food standards should be reassessed in light of students’ preferences". The second artticle reported on a study in elementary schools where fruit was placed on student trays automatically to encourage their consumption. The authors report that "Requiring that fruits and vegetables be placed on each child's tray increased the fraction of children who ate a serving of fruits or vegetables by 8 percentage points (P < 0·01) but led to an extra 0·7 servings being thrown away per lunch served (P < 0·01). The default option approach cost $US 1·72 to get one additional child to eat one serving of fruits and vegetables for 1 d." They suggest the "default option, as a stand-alone programme, had only a limited impact on fruit and vegetable consumption but was much less cost-effective than other approaches". Read more>>
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