Snelling, Anastasia M.; Casey Korba; & Alyvia

Snelling, Anastasia M.; Casey Korba; & Alyvia Burkey. (2007). The National School Lunch and competitive food offerings and purchasing behaviors of high school students. Journal of School Health, 77 (10): 701-705. Obesity is one of the most serious complaints facing American schoolchildren today. Precisely how to treat this concern remains a point of contention amongst our nation's politicians, educators, and nutritionists. Students eat a large proportion of their calories in school.

Given the importance of the school lunch program in providing food for the nation's poorest children (the subsidized National School Lunch program serves over 28 million schoolchildren a day) and the role of schools in shaping students' diets, the potential of cafeteria dining to affect students' current and future purchasing patterns is important. Current evidence suggests that student's choices today are poorer than they were years ago, before obesity rates began to climb.

The authors of the study "The National School Lunch and competitive food offerings and purchasing behaviors of high school students" from the Journal of School Health note: "In 2003, only 22.0% of students surveyed had eaten 5 or more servings of [non-starchy] fruits and vegetables...in 7 days preceding the survey; and only 17.1% drank 3 or more glasses of milk per day during these 7 days," and the intake of sugary drinks containing no significant proportion of fruit juice has doubled since the 1990s (Snelling, Korba & Burkey 2007: 702).

What is the problem the study was conducted to resolve? The question the study was engaging with was if altering the type of foods offered in cafeterias really influenced students' choices. There are some who contend it is not children's palates that have changed so dramatically in recent years, rather it is the increased availability of foods high in calories and carbohydrates, but low in nutritional density that is the cause of the obesity epidemic.

Why is the problem important for health care administrators to study? Healthcare administrators are under increased pressure to treat obesity effectively. However, given the complexity of this problem, which is multi-factorial in nature and engages issues of genetics, environment, lifestyle, economics, and psychology, determining if altering food choice offerings can exert a significant influence on student's behavior is important.

What is the purpose of the study? While there has been considerable nutritional improvement in the offerings of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the healthier food offered of the program must compete with the less healthy food offered in cafeteria lines, school stores, vending machines, and snack bars. These offerings include products such as sugary snack cakes and chips. The extent to which the availability of such foods can undercut improvements in the NSLP offerings was the purpose of the study.

Main research question Does the presence of 'competitor' unhealthy (red-coded) foods result in students selecting less healthy menu items, regardless of the content of NSLP offerings? What is the study hypothesis? Foods in the study were labeled green, yellow, and red (low-calorie foods to be eaten frequently; more calorie-dense but still nutrient-dense foods to be eaten in moderation; and high-calorie, low-nutrition 'fun' foods to be eaten infrequently). It was hypothesized that the increased presence of 'red' foods would result in the consumption of less 'green' foods offered by the NSLP.

Study variables: What are the independent and dependent study variables? Independent variables were the food offerings in the cafeteria, divided into NSLP food offerings and non-NSLP food offerings. Dependent variables were the relative percentage of green, yellow, and red food items consumed by students, as "devised from sales data of food items purchased in the cafeteria" (Snelling, Korba & Burkey 2007: 703). No vending machine foods were included in the study, an admitted limitation, since only cafeteria sales were analyzed (Snelling, Korba & Burkey 2007: 704).

Conceptual model or theoretical framework This study was descriptive and observational in nature. It used a sampling of three public high schools in the same county and did not actively manipulate any experimental variables Review of related literature A brief literature review was offered to demonstrate the rise in student obesity and the importance of the NSLP in providing foods for students. What study design is used? Observational; descriptive.