Photographic Examination of Student Lunches in Schools Using the Balanced School Day Versus Traditional School Day Schedules

Abstract

Therefore, the food a child eats depends on home nutritional practices and the perception of what parents think their child requires for energy at school."

Novel Tools in Determining the Physiological Demands and Nutritional Practices of Ontario FireRangers during Fire Deployments

“…Photographic dietary assessment, previously validated in the literature [34,35,36,37,48,49], was modified for use in this study. The audio-video recording of meals, allowed for the independent collection of food data during deployments, with both a photographic and verbal recording of meals, prior to dining, replacing previous methods of self-report (i.e.…”

“…coffee in portable container). This method is a novel adaptation of the photographic food-logging method that has been used successfully in previous research [48,49] and has been deemed to be a more accurate and reliable method than self-report methods (i.e. recall) [34,35,36,37].…”

Is the Balanced School Day Truly Balanced? A Review of the Impacts on Children, Families, and School Food Environments

“…It is plausible that parents packing for 2 nutrition breaks may provide more food for their children in the BSD and may rely on more processed higher‐calorie convenience foods, resulting in unintended negative health consequences. Although this hypothesis is not supported by a study that assessed student lunches in 1 BSD and 1 TS school, it should be noted that the methods used to assess children's food consumption were not validated against a gold standard and the total sample size (N = 117) may have been inadequate to detect an effect …”

“…Principles of weight management in overweight/obese children include healthy snacks, portion control, limiting empty calorie drinks, and increasing physical activity. Dorman et al found students in a BSD school had significantly more beverages in packed lunches than students in a TS school; however, they found no differences in calorie content of lunches, which may be due to their reliance on children's self‐reports.…”

“…Although this hypothesis is not supported by a study that assessed student lunches in 1 BSD and 1 TS school, it should be noted that the methods used to assess children's food consumption were not validated against a gold standard and the total sample size (N = 117) may have been inadequate to detect an effect. 17 Furthermore, children may be confused as to what portion of their packed meals they should eat at each of the nutrition breaks or they may consume most of their food at the morning break, which could result in greater hunger during the afternoon. 14 It is entirely plausible that changes in school mealtimes could change childhood eating habits; whether this is beneficial or not is unknown.…”