School canteen meals fall short on nutrition and sustainability

An EHU study reveals that the food served to children in canteens exceeds fat, protein and sodium recommendations.

The Microfluidics & BIOMICS Cluster, the Neuropsychopharmacology group and Biobizkaia have collaborated to assess school canteen meals. They concluded that the food served to the children does not fully comply with nutritional recommendations, and saw, among other things, that the food left uneaten by the children on their plates is hugely significant in terms of both nutrition and sustainability. Differences between public schools and charter schools were also detected.

A balanced diet in childhood is key to enjoying good health in the short and long term. For example, to prevent the growing obesity among children and the disorders linked to it. As many children usually have their midday meal in the school canteen, these areas offer an unprecedented opportunity for promoting healthy habits. So researchers at the University of the Basque Country (EHU) assessed the menus served to children in school canteens: "We know that, in compliance with the legislation, school menus are carefully designed to ensure they are suitable. But one thing is what appears on paper, and another is what happens at school. We aimed to diagnose what the children are given and what they actually eat, so that if a change needs to be made, it is possible to know from which perspective the matter should be approached," said the researcher Naiara Martinez.

So they assessed 1,000 menus served to 11-12 year-olds at 10 schools across the province of Bizkaia (Basque Autonomous Community). One of the researchers took photos of the plates before the children ate the food, and afterwards. That enabled them to assess what food was served, consumed and rejected. As Martinez pointed out, "knowing what the children are offered is as important as seeing what they eat and reject. Indeed, even if the menu is suitable, if they do not eat everything, the nutritional values may be undermined by the food left on their plates. And so is the sustainability of the menus. And that is, in fact, what the research has shown".

Regarding the composition of the menus served, on the one hand, the EHU research found that the amount of protein, fat and sodium was higher than the recommended amounts, and on the other, the amount of carbohydrate and fiber was lower than in the guidelines. "It came as no surprise. We had anticipated these results. The fact is that we are moving away from the traditional Mediterranean diet. What we saw in the canteens reflects nutrition in our society. There is too much protein on the menus, above all because there is a lot of meat; the fat is a consequence of fried food; and of course we eat a lot of salt," said Martinez.

The study also revealed that the food the children are served exceeds the recommended number of calories. "So lunch needs to cover 30% of energy needs for the whole day. The dishes we assessed, by contrast, provide 40%. That might be appropriate if our children were athletes, but the reality is that the activity level of most of them is average or low," explained Martinez.

Nevertheless, that excess energy is balanced by what the children leave on their plates, because the researchers saw that the students do not eat everything, and when what they don't consume is subtracted, the number of calories is not that high. Paying attention to the rejected food is important for the researchers: "In 12.2% of the menus assessed, more than a quarter is left on the plate uneaten. And in the case of vegetables and pulses, over half the consumers leave 25% uneaten. So, the nutritional values of what they actually eat are not in line with the intended ones, because they consume fewer vitamins, fiber, iron, etc."

The EHU researchers put forward strategies for addressing this: "For example, it was clear that children prefer puréed vegetables. When vegetables are served whole or as a garnish to accompany the main course (peas, peppers, salad, etc.), they do not eat so much. Attention needs to be paid to things like this, and taking the children's characteristics into account, results could be achieved with small changes."

Sustainability of school canteen menus

Furthermore, the research stresses that a dual aim is met if less food is rejected by the children: the children are better fed and sustainability is increased. Indeed, canteen menus also take the environmental impact into consideration. Besides measuring the food that ends up as waste in the rubbish, CO2- emissions were also measured and Martinez said there are opportunities for reducing emissions. "Meat is one of the foods that produces the most CO2. It is also one of the main sources of protein that the children are offered. Canteen menus have too much protein in terms of nutritional values, so it would be possible to reduce the protein amounts directly. More sustainable proteins could be used, those of plant origin (pulses, among others) or those of animal origin well accepted by the children, such as eggs."

Differing trends in public and charter schools

Among the schools visited, five were public and the other five charter ones. The EHU research compared them and detected a number of differences: "In both cases we found good models that followed the recommendations, but we saw that, on the whole, the menus in public school canteens were more in line with nutritional guidelines. By contrast, the amount of food that the schoolchildren left on their plates was lower in the charter schools. What that shows is that a balance needs to be sought; the menus need to be healthy, but they need to be more in line with the children's tastes. Indeed, even if they are nutritionally suitable, if they are not eaten up afterwards, we won't achieve anything. For example, we noticed that the food served provides the children with little fiber. An easy way of starting to change that would be to serve wholegrain rather than refined cereals. But would the children eat wholegrain rice and wholegrain pasta just the same? One of the main challenges of canteen menus is making them simultaneously healthy, tasty and sustainable. And to achieve that, many things have to be taken into consideration."

Even if coming up with a formula to get everything right in all this is no easy task, Martinez is calling for things to be changed: "I did a bibliographical review of this subject in my degree dissertation about ten years ago, and I found very similar data on the nutritional values of canteen menus. An effort is made to make the diets more suitable, but that is not enough. For example, school meals have improved, and more or less we have all learnt what healthy nutrition is. However, the results show that what has been done until now is not totally effective. That is why children's tastes and nutritional requirements need to be taken into account, canteen menus need to be updated and measures that will truly promote healthy eating habits need to be sought."