Do Healthy School Lunches Lead To A More Responsible Diet?

Are kids who are served more fruits and vegetables more likely to eat those foods? This question, posed by a research team, appears to be almost dumb.

Picky eaters are extremely common among kids of all ages — and there are plenty of adults who shun particular cuisines or veggies too. Something I've noticed is that very little kids, who have recently started to eat solid foods, tend to be happy to give anything a try. Some of the causes of being a picky eater include late weaning, waiting to give your child "lumpy" foods, and feeding difficulties in infancy — at least one of which is under your control, if you currently have a little one.

My kids would eat Brussels sprouts, Korean spicy pepper sauce (straight out of the container!), lettuce, spinach, artichokes, and all kinds of other foods that one would not usually consider “kid friendly” when they were babies and toddlers.

The foods that are offered are either just what the rest of the family is having, or a less-spiced version of it.

Today, I have one kid (a girl) who will still eat almost everything I prepare. I also currently have a picky eater. He's four, and he'll still eat plenty of vegetables — since we are vegetarian, he doesn't really have much choice — but he also consistently refuses to eat certain foods. He has black-listed lentils, chickpeas, anything with turmeric, most kinds of lettuce, zucchini, mushrooms, eggplant, and quite a few other things.

My son's picky-eating tendencies appeared when he started interacting with other kids who “hated” veggies. Around the same time, my friends started complaining about their kids' bad eating habits, largely picked up when they started preschool. Yet another important milestone occurred within this same time frame: my son was introduced to sweet treats like chocolate and cakes. These unhealthy foods immediately became preferable to anything else, and especially healthy meals.

“Are picky eating habits the result of social conditioning, excessive consumption of sugar, or could they be inherent?”

It seems to me that this would be a much more interesting question to be asking. But that's not what the US Department of Agriculture did look into. Instead, they wondered if serving more fruits and vegetables at school lunches would result in kids eating more fruits and vegetables.

I'd think you don't need a study to reach a conclusion. It certainly seems nothing but logical that kids would eat more of the things they are actually being served, and less of the things they are no longer being served. It might not work right away, but any kid who is hungry enough will eventually comply, unless a particular food is especially repulsive to them.

The results of the study were actually a bit more interesting, and may give an insight into how much of a social issue unhealthy foods have become in the modern world.  

Fruit-And-Vegetable Haters And School Lunches: The Truth

New rules issued by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) require that more fruits and vegetables are incorporated into school lunches, a rule that came into force for the 2012-2013 school year. While no data was available for that last school year yet at the time this article was published, the USDA did have access to data from 2005 provided by schools that already followed the new rules. 

"Students in schools that offered greater quantities of fruits and vegetables consumed more of these foods by most measures," the report unsurprisingly concluded.

Additional measures may be needed to get these kids to eat foods that constitute a healthy, responsible diet, the USDA concluded — to get kids to eat foods, it might not be enough to simply place these foods in front of children. 

The report noted that students who were offered fruits, dark green, red, orange and "other" vegetables in amounts that met the daily recommendation ate more of these foods than those who were served those same foods in quantities that didn't meet the recommended amount. Those kids who ate at schools that complied with the new rules were more likely to eat fruits and veggies than those who didn't. 

Some students were more likely than others to eat the fruits and vegetables they were served at lunch — and actually, particular types of vegetables. Younger kids, girls, black, Hispanic and Spanish-speaking kids were found to eat more fruits and orange and dark green veggies. 

Those kids who couldn't choose their lunch or could choose only healthy options ate more fruits and vegetables (surprise, surprise!). Are you ready for another "surprise"? Kids who were identified as picky eaters by their parents were less likely to eat fruits and vegetables, and particularly dark green and orange veggies. 

It's also worthy of note that kids from poor households were not more likely to eat more of their healthy school lunches. Or, as the report words it, "indicators of financial hardship or food insecurity were not significantly linked to higher levels of fruit and vegetable consumption, contrary to expectations". (In other words, the likelihood that some of these children were actually genuinely hungry did not lead to them eating healthy lunches they were offered; or some of the kids must have preferred staying hungry to eating what was on offer.)

Well, we do know that junk food is often a much more affordable option than healthy, home-prepared meals that use fresh produce. We also know that low-income parents are more likely to work long hours whenever possible, giving them less time to prepare healthy meals. Oh, and can we add that junk food can be quite addictive? Once a kid is hooked on the stuff, it's no wonder that he or she is less likely to want fruits and vegetables. 

The folks at USDA noted that "96 percent of schools in 2005 met the new weekly standard for total vegetables, and 75 percent met the standard for total fruit." This was more than expected, but it's fascinating that vegetables were apparently more important to schools than fruit. Want to know more?

• 75 percent of schools in 2005 offered lunches that met the new weekly standard for dark green vegetables

• 83 percent met the weekly standard for red/orange vegetables

• 21 percent met the standard for legumes

• 97 percent met the standard for "other" vegetables.

If you are the parent of a child who attends a school that serves lunch, there is a lot of good news wrapped up in this report. Schools and the government are becoming increasingly committed to educating your child in more than the "3 Rs" — healthy nutrition is going to be a priority and real action is being undertaken. 

Though school culture clearly plays a large role in a child's eating habits, we can safely say that the most important information about healthy foods still needs to come from home. The home is also where a child picks up habits. If you pay as much attention to your child's nutrition as the USDA is now doing, your child will have enjoy a healthier diet — and so, I feel confident in saying, will your grandchildren.