Hygienic Assessment of Organizing School Nutrition in the Russian Federation

Abstract

Introduction: School feeding is given particular importance all over the world as a factor ensuring food security and affecting socio-economic welfare and health of children. It is provided through an effective system of organization of school meals, which monitoring and evaluation is always relevant. Objective: A hygienic assessment of up-to-date organization of school nutrition in the Russian Federation. Materials and methods: We analyzed monitoring data and results of control and supervisory activities carried out with respect to schools (n = 44,419) and public catering companies (n = 7,473) by the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor) in the 2020 to 2021 academic year using methods of descriptive statistics. Results: We established a rise of the hot meal coverage rate over the past decade up to 91.4 %, reaching 100.0 % among schoolchildren in grades 1-4 in a number of regions. The coverage with hot meals of the schoolchildren requiring special nutrition due to their health condition equaled 92.7 % in the Russian Federation as a whole. The evaluation of nutritional and biological values of school breakfasts and lunches showed that they generally covered the needs of a growing organism for vitamins A, B, and C, while a deficiency of vitamin D was noted. Conclusion: The recognized importance of school meals in health maintenance of the general population indicates the necessity of their continuous monitoring, the study of regularities and features of physiology of a child, and supervision of effectiveness of healthy school feeding.