Objectives The number of schools offering school lunches has increased in China. This study examined the dietary quality of the lunches consumed by Chinese school-age children and adolescents, with a focus on comparing school lunches with home lunches.
Methods: The first weekday 24-hour dietary recall data of 6~17-year-old students (n=1,084) from the 2011 China Health and Nutrition Survey were analyzed. The subjects were divided into the school lunch group and the home lunch group, and the dietary quality of lunches was compared between the two groups among 6~11-year-old students (n=634; 177 in the school lunch group and 457 in the home lunch group) and 12~17-year-old students (n=450; 144 in the school lunch group and 306 in the home lunch group), respectively. Frequently consumed foods, amount of food group intake, food group intake pattern, Dietary Diversity Score (DDS), and Dietary Variety Score (DVS) were examined.
Results: The most frequently consumed foods in both lunch groups were rice and pork. An excessive intake of meat and insufficient intake of seafood were noted in both lunch groups. The school lunch group showed a lower level of vegetable consumption than the home lunch group (P=0.017 in 6~11-year-old students, P=0.003 in 12~17-year-old students).Although more students ate meals with a better dietary pattern in the school lunch group than the home lunch group, there were no significant differences in DDS and DVS between the two groups.
Conclusions: Overall, the dietary quality of lunches was not superior in the school lunch group compared to the home lunch group. This suggests that much room remain for improving dietary quality of school lunches in China.
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The purpose of this study was to investigate school dietitians' satisfaction with and needs for School Meal Service Support Centers. A web-based on-line survey was conducted with 1,102 nutrition teachers or school dietitians using four School Meal Service Support Centers during the summer of 2011. The data from 578 respondents (52.5%), consisting of 165 (44.4%), 334 (53.4%), 41 (67.2%), and 38 (86.4%) dietitians using Seoul, Gyeonggi, Suncheon and Gyeongju centers, respectively, were analyzed. The main reason for using the centers was subsidies from local governments. The dietitians using the metropolitan centers, which were Seoul and Gyeonggi centers, tended to buy agricultural products through the centers only, and those using local centers, which were Suncehon and Gyeongju centers, bought those products from the private suppliers as well as from the centers. The dietitians' overall level of satisfaction with the centers was not high showing 3.3 out of 5 points; it was significantly associated with the operating system and services of the centers such as system efficiency, delivery accuracy, communication, and information provision rather than the agricultural products provided by the centers. The dietitians preferred joint operation of the centers by local governments and producers' groups. They wanted School Meal Service Support Centers to be evaluated every year. It was suggested that efforts should be made to improve the operation system and service of School Meal Service Support Centers for improving dietitians' satisfaction with the centers. In addition, an evaluation system for School Meal Service Support Centers should be implemented soon based on school dietitians' needs.
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School lunch programs at middle schools have increased in quantity. However, the quality of them is in fact not enough to reach the satisfactory standard, especially in the aspect of environment of school meals. It is true that there seems to be little attention to the environment. In this study, degree of satisfaction about school lunch program was surveyed for students in one middle school. Focus of survey was sanitary condition about the dining room and classroom where they have lunch. First, in order to investigate the degree of satisfaction about their dining place, questionnaire was sent out to the students at one middle school in Seoul. Questionnaire was made with reference to previous research. Second, for the study on environmental sanitation, dropping bacteria (general bacteria) is measured in three parts of dining place (entrance, serving table, dining table). Petriplate film was exposed to the responsible places for 15 minutes and then cultivated at the temperature of 32degrees C for 48 hours before counting the number of bacteria formed. For the statistical analysis, SPSS 12.0 was used. The results of the study show that students had more satisfaction in dining room service than in classroom service. Important factors for the meal program such as "taste of food", "amount of food per student", "state of keeping warm", "appearance of food", "diversity of menu", and "kindliness of feeding staff" had more points in dining room than in classroom. For the environmental and sanitary aspect, the result of dropping bacteria (general bacteria) in dining room and classroom showed that table (5.00) and fooddistribution corner (8.67) of dining room were cleaner than those of classroom (P < 0.05). Making a good environment for school feeding will have a positive effect on the improvement of satisfaction and sanitation of school feeding. There should be expansion of dining room service for the students.
School Lunch Program (SLP) should provide adequate and qualitative nutritional food for student's growth and proper food habit. With this fact, this study divided 524 middle school students who resided in Jeonju, Jellabukdo into two groups, SLP or non SLP according to whether they were provided SLP or not. Then this research estimate each group's nutritional knowledge, nutritional attitude, dietary behavior, balance of three meals, and health checking their clinical symptom to investigate the effects of the SLP. This research applied anthropometric data, questionnaires and food intake data using 24 hours recall method. Each group's age average was same as 14.0 years old respectively. The average score of nutritional knowledge and condition of balance of lunch were significantly higher in SLP group than those of non-SLP group, although, there were no significant differences in the scores of nutritional attitude, dietary behavior, and balance of breakfast and dinner within both groups. This research showed that SLP had positive role on nutritional knowledge and balanced lunch. However, current SLP is not sufficient to cause change the nutritional attitude and dietary behavior. To make more applicable and effective result of SLP leading nutritional attitude changes and development of appropriate dietary behavior, certain level of nutritional education to the student may be important.
This study evaluated the quality of meals served by the elementary schools in Muan based on nutrient contents and food diversity. The contents, nutrient densities and nutrient adequacy ratios(NAR) of most nutrients were higher than those calculated from the Korean RDA. However, the content, nutrient density, and NAR of iron were lower than those calculated from the RDA for 10 to 12 year old girls. The content of sodium was somewhat high. The average number of different kinds of food and dishes per meal were 19.2 and 6.0, respectively. The more the number of dishes, the higher the NARs of calcium, calories, niacin, phosphorus and protein. However, the NAR of iron showed no correlation with the number of dishes. The meals belonging to the food group intake pattern containing fruits had more vitamin C and fiber, and less protein, lipid, and phosphorus than those belonging to the food group intake pattern not containing fruits. In conclusion, the quality of nutrition of meals served by school lunch program(SLP) was considered fairly good. However, the nutritionists should consider the iron for 10 to 12 year old girls and cut down the amount of sodium. In addition, unless the children prefer the foods served by SLP or adjust to the general aspects of SLP, SLP can't accomplish its purposes. Therefore, we suggest that nutritionists should survey children's food preference and satisfaction with the general aspects of SLP.
A study about the satisfaction of school lunch program was performed to 591 students and 541 parents in 5 middle schools by FS management system. The FS systems of the participating schools were 3 type of self-operating/traditional, self-operating/commissary and catering/delivery systems. Most joyful mealtime to students were identified as lunch because of eating with friends. Satiety after school lunch and leftover were different by FS system, such as adquate satiety greater in self-operating one and leftover food more in catering one than in the others. Foods tasted better in self-operating system than in catering one. The later was very poor for keeping soup hot and found more salty, more sweet and hotter than home meal. Students showed no difference in nutrition education but agreed greater to learning etiquette and to habit of various foods in self-operating system than in catering one. Students concluded they prefered school lunches to home-prepared lunches. Less work to prepare lunches home, better taste and nutrition, same meals to all students and nurition education were main reasons for parent to need school lunch program and they showed higher satisfaction of present school FS in self-operating system than in catering one. Parents claimed hygiene, taste, nutrition, nutrition education, food amount and service should be improved, especially in case of catering system and stressed on hygiene as the most important criteria for good school FS Management. They supported strongly school lunch program to coninue and prefered self-operating system than the others.