School meals are the healthiest food kids eat, research shows

Researchers analyzed the diets of more than 21,000 children and 40,000 adults between 2003 and 2018 and found that the percentage of “ poor nutritional quality foods consumed by schools ” decreased from 55% to 24% over a 15-year period, according to a study that Monday was published. in JAMA Network Open.

Nutritional quality was measured using multiple scales, including the The United States Department of Agriculture’s Healthy Eating Index, which rates a person’s diet with nine adequacy components (total fruits, whole fruits, total vegetables, greens or beans, whole grains, dairy products, total protein foods, seafood or vegetable protein, and fatty acids ) and four moderation components (refined grains, sodium, added sugars and saturated fat).

The law established new dietary reference values ​​for school meals to ensure children have access to healthy meals, the USDA said. Some of the standards include offering both fruits and vegetables to students on a daily basis and limiting the number of calories served based on the age of the children.

“It shows how a single Congressional policy can dramatically improve the diets of millions of children,” Mozaffarian said.

In the results, researchers also found that the increase in healthy eating in schools equally affected all ethnicities included in the study.

Most of the calories come from the supermarket

However, Mozaffarian noted that only 9% of the calories that children eat come from schools. For adults and children, about two-thirds of the food consumed comes from the supermarket.

During the 15-year study, the amount of unhealthy food consumed by children in the supermarket dropped from 53% to 45%. For adults, the decrease was from 40% to 32%.

Mozaffarian said he sees supermarkets as “the greatest opportunity to improve the quality of the diet,” because most of the calories people consume are bought in these establishments.

One solution would be real costing, he said, pricing food based on its social cost, including the cost to people’s health.

“Foods that actually make people healthier should cost less and be more readily available,” Mozaffarian said. “Food that makes people sick and also harms the environment should be more expensive.”

When parents don’t bring processed foods into the house, kids are less likely to eat it, said Marion Nestle, Paulette Goddard professor emerita of nutrition, nutrition studies and public health at New York University, who was not involved in the study. .

Another strategy to reduce the amount of unhealthy foods kids consume at the grocery store is to stop companies from advertising unhealthy foods to kids, Nestle said.

She said children have been brainwashed into believing they would eat ‘children’s foods’ such as cereals and fast foods marketed for children. But in reality, Nestle said, there is no such thing as ‘infant nutrition’.

Nestlé continued, “Children should eat exactly what their parents do. And their parents should eat as much healthily as possible, so there is no need to buy special food for children.”

In addition, she recommended that supermarkets place healthier food in top-quality locations, such as aisles and eye-level shelves for adults and children.

“There’s no reason kids can’t appreciate healthy foods,” said Nestlé, pointing out that nutritious food at school and at home can be delicious.