Many parents prefer to send their children off to school with a packed lunch, believing that the food they have given them is far healthier than school lunches. But a new study, published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, claims this may not be the case.
The research team, led by Alisha R. Farris of the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Exercise at Virginia Tech, found that school lunches had better average nutritional quality than packed lunches.
“We found that both packed and school lunches almost entirely met nutrition standards, except school lunches were below energy and iron recommendations, whereas packed lunches exceeded fat and saturated fat recommendations,” says Farris.
The quality of school lunches has been a major focus in recent years. In 2012, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) updated the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) guidelines, setting out a number of recommendations with the aim of offering healthier food choices to children at school.
As part of the guidelines, the USDA recommend that schools should ensure students are offered fruits and vegetables every day, are offered fat-free or low-fat milk varieties, given a choice of whole-grain rich foods and are served the correct food portion size, based on their age.
It seems these recommendations have proved successful so far. In March, Medical News Today reported on a study from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA, claiming that the guidelines have increased consumption of fruits and vegetables among low-income students.
But despite drives to improve the quality of school lunches, around 40% of parents continue to prepare a packed lunch for their children. However, Farris notes that – unlike school lunches – there are no guidelines that recommend what foods parents should include in their children’s packed lunches.
As such, Farris and her team set out to determine how the nutritional quality of packed lunches compares with that of school lunches.
The researchers analyzed 1,314 lunches consumed at three rural elementary schools in Virginia. Of these lunches, 57.2% were school lunches and 42.8% were packed lunches.
Each researcher was allocated a group of around 10 elementary school children, and the researchers were required to monitor what foods and drinks each child ate during the lunch period of 5 consecutive school days.
The team found that packed lunches contained a lot more energy, carbohydrates, fat, saturated fat and sugar than school lunches. They also contained much lower levels of protein, fiber, vitamin A and calcium.
The researchers say these findings are likely to be a result of the USDA guidelines promoting higher exposure to fruits and vegetables, while packed lunches were more likely to contain savory snacks, desserts and sugar-sweetened drinks.
Sodium content, however, was found to be much higher in school lunches that packed lunches, even though the team says packed lunches were more likely to contain processed foods. What is more, school lunches were found to contain lower levels of vitamin C and iron than packed lunches.
Commenting on their findings, co-author Elena L. Serrano, PhD, also of the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Exercise at Virginia Tech, says:
“Habits develop in early childhood and continue into adolescence and adulthood. Therefore, this is a critical time to promote healthy eating. Determining the many factors which influence the decision to participate in the NSLP or bring a packed lunch from home is vital to addressing the poor quality of packed lunches.”
In January, Medical News Today reported on a study claiming that exposure to food commercialism – defined as schools having beverage or food contracts with certain companies – remains high in schools, and that the majority of contracts are with companies that offer nutritionally poor food products.