Meeting Total Fat Requirements for School Lunches: Influence of School Policies and Characteristics
by
Constance Newman,
Joanne Guthrie,
Lisa Mancino,
Katherine Ralston, and Melissa Musiker
Economic Research Report No. (ERR-87) 22 pp, December 2009
Concerns about child obesity have raised questions about the
quality of meals served in the National School Lunch Program
(NSLP). Local, State, and Federal policymakers responded to these
concerns beginning in the mid-1990s by instituting a range of
policies and standards to improve the quality of USDA-subsidized
meals. While most of USDA's nutrition standards have been met by
schools, total fat and saturated fat as a percent of calories is an
ongoing challenge.
What Is the Issue?
The School Nutrition Dietary Assessment-III, conducted by USDA's
Food and Nutrition Service, recently found that while most schools
meet requirements for vitamins, protein, calcium, and iron, only
one in five schools served lunches that met the standard for total
fat, set at 30 percent of calories or less. This report compares
the characteristics and food policies of schools serving lunches
that met total fat requirements to those serving lunches with fat
content that was either 30-35 percent of calories (middle category)
or over 35 percent (high). Identifying the food practices and
policies of conforming versus nonconforming schools may help to
identify effective strategies for improving the nutritional quality
of USDA school meals.
What Did the Study Find?
The fat content of school lunches was statistically correlated
with many school policies and characteristics in the spring of
2005. Some policies and practices, such as whether french fries are
regularly served, can directly affect the nutritional content of
USDA lunches. Other policies, such as a school's allowance of
"competitive" foods or foods that bypass nutritional standards, can
indirectly affect the content of USDA lunches by offering choices
that appeal to students' taste preferences. Among the policies or
practices that directly affect the fat content of USDA
lunches:
• Promotion of fresh fruits and vegetables/local foods.
Participation in at least one program that promotes the purchase of
locally grown food or fresh fruit and vegetables was significantly
higher in elementary and middle/high schools that serve lunches in
the lowest fat category, below 30 percent of calories.
• French fries or dessert. The provision of french
fries or dessert as a part of the USDA lunch was significantly
higher among middle/high schools in the highest fat category.
• Low-fat milk only. Providing lowfat milk as the only
milk choice was significantly higher in the lowest fat category for
both elementary and middle/high schools.
• Meal planning method. Historically, schools have used
a food-based ("traditional") method for planning menus where each
meal must consist of certain food types such as a meat, vegetable,
starch, etc. In recent years, some schools have adopted a
nutrient-based method where lunches are planned according to the
nutrient content of food items. Or they use a mix of methods called
the "enhanced traditional" method. The traditional meal planning
method was used significantly more by schools in the highest fat
category for both elementary and middle/high schools, whereas the
enhanced traditional method was used more in the lowest-fat
category for middle/high schools.
Other policies may affect lunch quality since they enable
students to choose alternative foods. For example, the availability
of a la carte foods in elementary schools was
significantly higher in the middle category of fat content than in
the lowest category; no relationship across fat categories was
found for middle/high schools. And the presence of vending machines
was significantly higher among middle/high schools in the highest
fat category.
Although school characteristics (rural vs. urban, region, size)
are not subject to policy change, they may be useful for targeting
lunch improvement efforts. For both elementary and middle/high
schools, urban schools were more highly represented in the lowest
fat category, and rural schools were more predominant in the
highest fat category. Elementary and middle/high schools in the
Southeast were more predominant in the two higher fat categories
than in the lowest category, whereas Southwest schools were more
predominant in the two lower fat categories. Elementary schools in
the West were more predominant in the lowest fat category than in
the two higher categories.
How Was the Study Conducted?
We used nationally representative school-level data from the
School Nutrition Dietary Assessment-III to calculate the
statistical effect of school policies and characteristics on the
fat content of NSLP lunches served by 397 schools. Schools were
divided into three categories based on the average fat content of
reimbursable school lunches served and chosen by students over a
week. The fat content categories were (1) no more than 30 percent
of calories from fat, (2) 30 to 35 percent of calories from fat,
and (3) more than 35 percent of calories from fat. We compared the
policies, practices, and characteristics of schools within each fat
category to those in the other two fat categories. Using a
student's t-test and school-level sample weights, we indicate mean
differences between subgroups that vary with a 90-percent level of
significance or above. This threshold was chosen because of small
sample size, especially among specific fat content
subcategories.