scholarly journals National School Lunch Program Participation and Sex Differences in Body Mass Index Trajectories of Children From Low-Income Families

2011 ◽  
Vol 165 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphne C. Hernandez ◽  
Lori A. Francis ◽  
Emily A. Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Body Mass Index ◽  
Low Income ◽  
School Lunch ◽  
National School Lunch Program ◽  
Program Participation ◽  
School Lunch Program ◽  
National School ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
Lunch Program ◽  
Body Mass Index Trajectories

scholarly journals Effect of the Strong4Life School Nutrition Program on Cafeterias and on Manager and Staff Member Knowledge and Practice, Georgia, 2015

2017 ◽  
Vol 132 (2_suppl) ◽  
pp. 48S-56S ◽  
Author(s):  
Janani Rajbhandari-Thapa ◽  
Ashley Bennett ◽  
Farrah Keong ◽  
Wendy Palmer ◽  
Trisha Hardy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Staff Member ◽  
School Lunch ◽  
School Nutrition ◽  
National School Lunch Program ◽  
Program Participation ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
School Lunch Program ◽  
National School ◽  
Lunch Program

Objectives: The goal of the Strong4Life School Nutrition Program is to promote healthy eating in school cafeterias in Georgia by training school nutrition managers and staff members to implement changes in the cafeteria to nudge children to make healthier choices. The objective of our study was to evaluate program effect on (1) school nutrition manager and staff member knowledge of evidence-based strategies and their self-efficacy to make positive changes, (2) the school cafeteria environment, and (3) National School Lunch Program participation. Methods: We assessed changes in participant knowledge, beliefs, and self-efficacy by administering a survey before and after training (February-July 2015); a follow-up survey (3 school months posttraining) assessed changes in the cafeteria. A total of 842 school nutrition managers and staff members were trained and completed pre- and posttraining surveys; 325 managers completed the follow-up survey. We used cafeteria records from a subsample of the first schools trained (40 intervention and 40 control) to assess National School Lunch Program participation. Results: From pretraining to posttraining, we found a significant increase in manager and staff member (n = 842) knowledge of strategies for enhancing taste perception through the use of creative menu item names (from 78% to 95%, P < .001) and understanding that food placement in the lunch line influences food selection (from 78% to 95%, P < .001), and in their self-perceived ability to influence the cafeteria environment (from 91% to 96%, P < .001). From pretraining to 3-month follow-up, managers (n = 325) reported increased use of evidence-based serving strategies: visibility (from 84% to 96% for placing healthy options in >2 locations, P < .001), convenience (from 63% to 84% for placing plain milk in front of other beverages, P < .001), sell (from 25% to 38% for branding healthy items with stickers, P < .001), price (from 17% to 27% for using bundle pricing to encourage sales, P < .001), and taste (from 77% to 85% for signage demonstrating the benefits of healthy eating, P = .01). National School Lunch Program participation did not change significantly. Conclusions: Training cafeteria managers and staff members in Smarter Lunchrooms Movement techniques may be an effective way to make changes in the school cafeteria environment to encourage healthier choices among students. Additional studies allowing time for more complex changes to be implemented are needed to assess the full effect of the program.

The Effect of the Community Eligibility Provision on the Ability of Free and Reduced-Price Meal Data to Identify Disadvantaged Students

2020 ◽  
pp. 016237372096855
Author(s):  
Cory Koedel ◽  
Eric Parsons
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
School Lunch ◽  
National School Lunch Program ◽  
Disadvantaged Students ◽  
Individual Student ◽  
School Lunch Program ◽  
National School ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Lunch Program ◽  
Research And Policy

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) is a policy change to the federally administered National School Lunch Program that allows schools serving low-income populations to classify all students as eligible for free meals, regardless of individual circumstances. This has implications for the use of free and reduced-price meal (FRM) data to proxy for student disadvantage in education research and policy applications, which is a common practice. We document empirically how the CEP has affected the value of FRM eligibility as a proxy for student disadvantage. At the individual student level, we show that there is essentially no effect of the CEP. However, the CEP does meaningfully change the information conveyed by the share of FRM-eligible students in a school. It is this latter measure that is most relevant for policy uses of FRM data.

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