Middle schoolers without a la carte options ate nearly an entire extra daily serving of fruits and vegetables and stayed within the U.S. Department of Agriculture's guidelines for total daily fat consumption, according to Martha Y. Kubik, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota and colleagues.
"Our results suggest that the primarily high-fat snacks and calorie-dense beverages offered and sold to students via a la carte programs are displacing fruits and vegetables in the diets of young teens," Kubik and colleagues say.
Campus snack vending machines can also make a difference in daily fruit consumption, the researchers found. For each snack vending machine present in the schools, students' average daily fruit consumption dropped by 11 percent.
An increasing number of schools are offering a la carte and vending options along with more traditional lunches, according to Kubik and colleagues, who note that the school environment can have a powerful influence on students' eating behaviors.
"Interestingly, this metamorphosis in the school environment has occurred during a time when deliberate national effort has been expended to improve the nutritional health of the U.S. population," Kubik and colleagues say.
The researchers collected information on the lunch options and eating habits of seventh-grade students at 16 schools in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area. Thirteen of the schools had a la carte programs and seven schools had snack vending machines that could be used by students.
Kubik and colleagues also examined the nutritional content of the foods that were sold through each of these venues, separating them into high-fat and lower-fat groups.
In the 13 a la carte programs, 84 percent of the foods offered and 93 percent of the foods sold were items that fell into the high-fat "foods to limit" category. In the vending machines, nearly four out of every five snacks offered was in the high-fat category.
The researchers also looked at whether serving fried potatoes in school lunches would affect students' fruit and vegetable intake. They concluded that fried potatoes at lunch did increase the students' average fruit and vegetable intake. But they also noted that fried potatoes represented more than half of all vegetable servings served to students within the school lunches.
Kubik and colleagues say that more low-cost and healthy items should be added to a la carte menus, and that schools should consider policies to limit students' access to high-fat snacks and sweetened drinks.
"Young people spend considerable time at school, and attention to the food options and opportunities available to students at school is clearly warranted if healthy eating is to become normal childhood behavior," the researchers write.
By Becky Ham, Staff Writer
Health Behavior News Service
The study was published in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health and supported by the National Cancer Institute.
For more information
Health Behavior News Service: 202-387-2829 or http://www.hbns.org.
Interviews: Contact Marti Kubik at 612-625-0606 or kubik002@umn.edu.
American Journal of Public Health: 202-777-2511 or http://www.ajph.org.
Journal
American Journal of Public Health