Whether they bring food from home or buy food at school, children aren’t eating healthy lunches, says a Bloomberg story about two small-scale studies. Johns Hopkins researchers said six-of-10 of the 274 youngsters they studied chose a fruit or a vegetable as part of their school lunch and only one-quarter of the children who selected a vegetable ate a bite of it. A Baylor Medical College team said when children bring meals from home, they contain fewer fruits and vegetables and more salt and sugar than school meals, according to Bloomberg. The Baylor study looked at 337 students.
According to Bloomberg, the Johns Hopkins “researchers also found a major influence on how much healthy food children ate: the cafeteria environment. Children were more likely to eat healthy foods when it was quieter in the cafeteria; when the food was cut up into smaller pieces like apple slices; when lunch periods were longer; and when teachers were eating lunch in the same cafeteria.” It quoted the lead researcher as saying there was a big jump in consumption “if these factors are controlled and they aren’t expensive things to control for.”