Last month I wrote a piece for Civil Eats describing current and forthcoming efforts by various factions to modify or roll back some of the recent changes to school meals mandated by the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA). In particular, one facet of the new school meal regulations has generated quite a bit of controversy: how fruits and vegetables should be served to school children.
To bring everyone up to speed, before the passage of the HHFKA, kids could pass on fruits and vegetables so long as they took the required total number of meal components. Under the new rules, however, children must take a serving of fruit or vegetables whether they want to or not.
The School Nutrition Organization (SNA), the nation’s largest association of school food professionals, has argued that this new system has resulted in “increased program costs, plate waste, and a decline in student participation,” and it’s hoping that Congress will allow schools to revert to the old system (called “offer versus serve”) when it re-funds the school meal program in 2015. The SNA’s assertions regarding increased food waste have been echoed in anecdotal reports from school districts around the country, but school food advocates are urging Congress to stay the course and keep the new system in place.
Against that backdrop, the findings of a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health are all the more important. Researchers collected data on plate waste in four urban, low-income school districts both before and after the new standards were implemented, and found that under the new standards:
fruit selection increased by 23.0%; entrée and vegetable selection remained unchanged. In addition, consumption of vegetables increased by 16.2%; fruit consumption was unchanged, but because more students selected fruit, overall, more fruit was consumed post-implementation.
Importantly, the new standards did not result in increased food waste, contradicting anecdotal reports from food service directors, teachers, parents, and students that the regulations were causing an increase in waste due to both larger portion sizes and the requirement that students select a fruit or vegetable.
It’s important to note that the study did find that “high levels of fruit and vegetable waste continued to be a problem—students discarded roughly 60%-75% of vegetables and 40% of fruits on their trays,” but the authors conclude that this finding means that districts must “must focus on improving food quality and palatability to reduce waste,” rather than seeking to roll back the new meal standards.
So, to summarize, fruit and vegetable waste continues to be a problem for schools, but no more so than before the HHFKA standards were implemented, and the requirement that kids take a fruit or vegetable at lunch has caused a measurable increase in both fruit and vegetable consumption, with kids showing a preference for fruit over vegetables.
That’s good news, but it remains to be seen whether the Harvard findings will carry enough weight in Congress next year to counter the SNA and others (namely, conservative Republicans) seeking to go back to the old regime. Stay tuned.
[Editorial Note: Yesterday's post regarding new, proposed curbs on school junk food advertising yielded a lot of interesting discussion. I'll be posting a follow-up tomorrow or early next week.]
Do You Love The Lunch Tray? ♥♥♥ Then “like” The Lunch Tray! Join almost 8,000 TLT fans by liking TLT’s Facebook page (and then adding it to your news feed or interest lists) to get your Lunch delivered, along with bonus commentary, interesting kid-and-food links, and stimulating discussion with other readers. You can also join over 4,200 TLT followers on Twitter, see my virtual bulletin boards on Pinterest and find selected TLT posts on The Huffington Post. And be sure to check out my free video for kids about processed food, “Mr. Zee’s Apple Factory!”
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2014 Bettina Elias SiegelThe post STUDY: New School Lunch Rules Increase Kids’ Fruit & Vegetable Consumption appeared first on The Lunch Tray.