What could be more wholesome for elementary and middle-school students than a lunch packed at home? A lunch purchased from the school cafeteria.
After observing 337 kids at a dozen schools in Houston, researchers found that the typical lunch brought from home contained far fewer vegetables, fruit, meat (or meat alternatives) and whole grains than federal nutrition standards advise. They also included too much salt, soda and dessert, according to a report published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
Since 2012, schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program have had to serve meals that meet the standards set down in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. But there’s no such requirement for those who fill the lunch boxes and brown bags that children take to school.
And in the Houston schools studied, you could certainly tell.
The gaps between the food served at school and the food brought from home were not small:
School lunches included 2.5 cups of fruit, but elementary school students’ home lunches included only 0.33 cups of fruit, of which 0.24 cups were eaten, on average. Middle-school students packed 0.29 cups of fruit and ate 0.22 cups.
School lunches served up 3.75 cups of vegetables, while younger students with home lunches packed a measly 0.07 cups of vegetables and ate 0.05 cups of them, on average. The middle schoolers brought a paltry 0.11 cups of vegetables and ate 0.08 cups.
Though students should eat at least 4 ounces of whole grains during the midday meal, home lunches for elementary school kids contained only 0.22 ounces of whole grains and those for middle-school students had 0.31 ounces, on average. The home lunches also fell short on total grains.
Elementary school lunches included 8 to 10 ounces of meat or a meat alternative, but home lunches had only 1.87 ounces, of which 1.49 ounces were eaten, on average. Middle-school kids packed even less (1.63 ounces, on average), though they ate a little more (1.59 ounces). Still, they were woefully short of their target of 9 to 10 ounces of meat per day.
With so little meat and potatoes (and fruit, vegetables and grains), what was in the home lunches? The elementary school lunches included 4.43 ounces of sugary drinks, 0.58 servings of snack chips and 0.67 servings of dessert – none of which may be served in cafeterias that follow the National School Lunch Program guidelines. Lunches brought by middle schoolers had a little more chips but a little less dessert and sugary drinks, on average.
Dessert was the most popular item in the middle-school lunch bags – 101.8 percent of packed desserts were eaten, the researchers found. The figure exceeded 100 percent because some kids got extras from their friends or purchased dessert at the school snack bar. Chips were a close second, with 98.7 percent of those packed being eaten.
For elementary school students, milk (purchased at school) was the item most likely to be consumed (99.1 percent of it was). Dessert and chips came in second and third, with 92.6 percent and 90.7 percent eaten, respectively.
The sodium in home lunches was well in excess of the federal guidelines. Though lunches sold in elementary schools can’t exceed 640 milligrams of sodium, the meals packed by elementary school students contained 1,110 mg, of which 910 were eaten, on average. Lunches sold in middle schools can have up to 710 mg of sodium, but lunches brought from home by middle schoolers had 1,003 mg of sodium, all but 3 of which were eaten.
The category in which home lunches scored well across the board was saturated fat. Federal standards recommend that fewer than 10 percent of total calories come from saturated fat. Lunches packed for elementary school students delivered 9.92 percent of their calories in the form of saturated fat; for middle-school home lunches, that figure was 9.03 percent.
Total calories weren’t too bad either. Elementary school lunches should contain between 550 and 650 calories, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise. The home lunches observed in the study averaged 661 calories, but because only 85 percent of the food was eaten, only 559 calories actually were consumed. Middle-school lunches averaged 616 calories, well within the 600- to 700-calorie target laid out in the dietary guidelines.
The home lunches packed for elementary school students were more expensive than the lunches they could have bought at school, the researchers reported. The total cost of the ingredients in these lunches ranged from 69 cents to $4.78 per meal, with an average of $1.93. A school lunch would have cost $1.80.
The cost of middle-school lunches packed at home averaged $1.76, less than the $2.05 that they would have had to pay to buy lunch at school.
The researchers said they were surprised to find that, overall, home lunches brought to low-income schools cost more than home lunches brought to middle-income schools. “This is a new finding that warrants more investigation,” they wrote.
Now that schools have improved the quality of lunches they serve, it’s time for policymakers to turn their attention to parents and others who pack lunches at home, the researchers concluded.
“It is apparent that a large component of the school food environment – foods brought from home – has not been thoroughly investigated and could be a contributing factor to child overweight status,” they wrote.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
