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Fruits and vegetables offered in school lunch salad bars versus traditional school lunches.

Article Excerpt
School-age children in the United States eat fewer fruits and vegetables than are recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA] and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2000). In 1994-96, only 14 percent of school-age children met the target of consuming at least two servings of fruits a day; only 17 percent met the target of consuming at least three servings of vegetables a day (Gleason & Suitor, 2000). Even fewer met the recommended standards for consuming a variety of fruits and vegetables.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that all people ages 2 and older choose a wide variety of fruits and vegetables each day because different fruits and vegetables are rich in different nutrients. One target for variety, which is used in the Federal Healthy People 2010 objectives, is an increase in the percentage of children who consume one-third of their vegetable servings from dark-green or orange vegetables. In 1994-96, only 6 percent of 6- to 19-year-old females and about 5 percent of 6- to 19-year-old males met that goal (HHS, 2001).

One proposed way to improve children's consumption of fruits and vegetables is to increase the number of schools that offer salad bars as part of the National School Lunch Program. A group of policy officials, the National 5-A-Day Partnership, has proposed that all schools have salad bars as a way to increase the number and variety of fruits and vegetables that children consume at school (U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO], 2002).

Our study expanded upon a previous USDA study (Schmidt, Hirschman, & McKinney, 2002) on salad bars that examined whether salad bars were associated with a greater variety of fruits and vegetables being offered in school lunches. It was the first analysis of nationally representative data on foods offered in school lunch salad bars.

In the interest of presenting a balanced view of salad bars, this study also described items other than fruits and vegetables in salad bars to provide a sense of how often high-fat salad bar ingredients (including regular salad dressing, regular cheese, and mayonnaise-based salads) are offered. Any policy discussion of school lunch salad bars should consider whether these ingredients also could contribute to an increase in children's total dietary fat intake because school-age children consume too much dietary fat. In 1994-96, only 25 percent of school-age children met the Dietary Guidelines for Americans' recommendation of consuming no more than 30 percent of calories from fat (Gleason & Suitor, 2000).

Previous Research

Previous research on the foods offered in salad bars has been limited. One study (Garceau et al., 1997) examined directly the nutrient content of food bars, including salad bars, in 96 elementary schools that participated in an intervention designed to reduce the total fat, saturated fat, and sodium content of school lunches and breakfasts. It found that side salad bars had more total fat than was found in the regular fruit and vegetable components of traditional school lunches. It also found that, compared with the vegetables and fruits served in the regular serving line, side salad bars had similar amounts of saturated fat, vitamin A, iron, and dietary fiber but less calcium and ascorbic acid. One study limitation, however, was that the nutrient analysis was based on assumptions about foods selected from salad bars because data on foods selected were not available. In particular, the results were sensitive to assumptions about how much salad dressing children placed on salads. The report did not examine which foods were offered, so it did not investigate the issue of fruit and vegetable variety.

Methods

This analysis used data from the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study-II (SNDA-II), which was designed to produce national cross-sectional estimates of the nutrient composition of USDA meals served in elementary and secondary schools. The data were collected in late September 1998 to May 1999. The study focused exclusively on public schools, which account for roughly 90 percent of all participants in the National School Lunch Program. The study design included separate nationally representative probability samples of public elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools participating in the National School Lunch Program (Fox, Crepinsek, Connor, & Battaglia, 2001). Alaskan and Hawaiian schools were not included in the study.

The sample of schools was developed in several steps. First, a stratified random sample of School Food Authorities, (1) which are typically school districts, was selected. To the extent possible, one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school were chosen from each School Food Authority. Finally, the schools in...

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