A University–School Collaboration to Enhance Healthy Choices Among Children

Abstract

One factor contributing to the childhood obesity epidemic is easy access to foods with high fat content available in public schools. After several years of advocacy efforts conducted by a city-wide coalition, the public schools system in an urban Midwestern city introduced fresh salad bars for lunch in three schools. Researchers have argued, however, that the introduction of salad bars in schools, without nutrition education, is not enough to produce changes in eating patterns. In this study, researchers used a target and control school to evaluate the impact of a 5-month nutrition education program. The results indicated that once the nutrition education program was implemented, the number of children consuming salad entrees and salad items doubled and quadrupled respectively, and knowledge about fruits and vegetables increased. Implications for community researchers interested in addressing childhood obesity are discussed.

Are school meals a viable and sustainable tool to improve the healthiness and sustainability of children´s diet and food consumption? A cross-national comparative perspective

“…Potential positive effects of making healthy and sustainable food options available in schools may be reinforced by the promotion of healthy and sustainable food behaviors such as in school garden projects, focusing on sustained intake of healthier foods inside and outside of school (Suarez-Balcazar et al, 2014;Roccaldo et al, 2014). Yet students constantly receive conflicting signals about nutrition, health, and sustainability in their everyday school environment (Stone, 2007).…”

The Good Food for Learning Universal Curriculum-Integrated Healthy School Lunch Intervention: Protocol for a Two-Year Matched Control Pre-Post and Case Study

“…Various countries, including Canada most recently, have adopted nutritional recommendations that recognize the connections between nutrition and environmental sustainability [ 1 , 68 ]. According to Cullen et al [ 69 ], food literacy is “the ability to make decisions to support the achievement of personal health and a sustainable food system considering environmental, social, economic, cultural, and political components.” School food programs focused on the provision of healthy, sustainable foods (including vegetables and fruit, plant proteins, and locally produced foods) along with the promotion of sustainable food behaviors such as school gardening and learning how to reduce food waste, may work together to change food behaviors [ 26 ], which may spill into life away from school [ 70 ]. Stone [ 71 ] and Weaver-Hightower [ 72 ] explain how children can be involved in age-appropriate ways to grow and prepare food, along with learning how the food system works and its environmental and social challenges, to integrate learning with a meal program.…”