Composition of School Meals in Sweden, Finland, and Iceland: Official Guidelines and Comparison With Practice and Availability

Abstract

The guidelines regarding food availability were quite well followed, but the large variation in energy and nutrient content of provided school meals between days indicates a need for standardization.

Analytical Assessment and Nutritional Adequacy of School Lunches in Sintra’s Public Primary Schools

“…In agreement with previous studies [39][40][41], the content from the school lunches did not reach the reference values included in the guidelines for carbohydrates, but exceeded the reference values for protein. School lunches provided on average of 27.7% of the DER, which is slightly less than the 30% stated in the guidelines.…”

Characteristics of Canteens at Elementary Schools, Upper Secondary Schools and Workplaces that Comply with Food Service Guidelines and Have a Greater Focus on Food Waste

“…Other studies in the school setting have reported mixed results with regard to compliance with food service policies and guidelines. Juniusdottir et al found that the guidelines and recommendations on the availability of different foods were generally quite well followed, but only 61% of the meals satisfied the recommendation of minimum energy content among the 24 participating elementary schools from three Nordic countries [14]. Lower levels of compliance were found in a study among 263 primary and secondary Australian school menus, where the proportion of schools compliant with healthy canteen policies in each state was from 5% and up to 62%.…”

“…Many countries have introduced policies and official guidelines that support the provision of healthier food and beverage options and restrict unhealthy options at canteens at schools [10,11], and to a lesser extent, also at workplaces [12,13], either voluntary or obligatory. Despite the introduction of such policies and guidelines, the reported adherence to the policies and guidelines is mixed [14,15,16], suggesting a need for research on strategies and factors underlying the success of such policies to increase adherence to food service policies and guidelines [10,17,18]. Also, this highlights the need to monitor the food environment to inform about points of progress or lack of progress towards meeting the policy goals in the different settings.…”

“…For example, the UK revised standards to include five requirements in relation to the food group of meat, fish, eggs, beans and non-dairy sources of protein, primarily to ensure adequate provision of protein, iron and zinc while limiting the amount of fat, saturated fat and salt [21]. This approach might be easier for the food service operators to understand and apply in practice because it does not require access to nutrient calculation programs and up-to-date food composition data [14,22,23]. In line with this, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration developed a new concept for food-based guidelines in 2017 directed at food service operators in elementary schools, after-school care, upper secondary schools and workplaces [24,25,26,27].…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, no studies have been conducted until now on compliance with food service guidelines across the different settings or whether compliance differs by canteen characteristics, including the use of organic food. However, some studies have examined compliance within individual settings, e.g., in other Nordic countries, the UK and Australia [14,15,16].…”