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While not all children have a compulsive hankering for sugary drinks and fatty foods, the ease-of-access that schools provide to unhealthy foods in school canteens can encourage such a habit.
And at a time when childhood obesity is on the rise, schools’ food policies can have a significant impact in this context. After all, research has shown that children consume more than one-third of their daily meals and snacks in school.
With this in mind, researchers from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in the US, looked at the impact of these policies and how schools can ensure that children can develop healthy eating habits.
The study, published in PLOS ONE, found that providing free fruits and vegetables – both within and outside the standard school meal – and limiting the availability of sugary drinks in schools can have positive short and long-term health effects.
The researchers estimated that providing free fruits and vegetables can increase children’s fruit consumption over a period of one to two years. This was predicted to have the greatest impact on high school children with a 25% increase, followed by 22% in middle school and 17% in elementary school.
The decrease in the consumption of sugary drinks was 27% in elementary school, 19% in middle school and 15% in high school.
The latest study supports a growing body of research that shows how school food policies, if targeted correctly, can improve students’ physical health, and even academic outcomes.
Research from the universities of East London and Westminster, published in 2012, found that drinking water during exams can improve students’ academic achievement.
The six researchers recorded the behaviour of 447 undergraduate students across three different cohorts in relation to whether students brought drinks, and the type of drinks they brought, into exams.
The study found the grades of students who had brought water into the exams improved by up to 10%.
The researchers from the latest US study said their findings suggest that national school policies on the provision of fruit and vegetables and sugar-sweetened beverages restriction would “modestly but meaningfully improve dietary habits and Body Mass Index in children and CMD mortality later in life”.
“Our findings have implications for the public, school officials, health care providers, and policymakers aiming to improve the health and nutrition of children and reduce the burden of cardiometabolic disease in adults.”