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Contribution of school lunches to USDA Food Patterns: findings from the fourth School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study (SNDA‐IV)
Author(s) -
Crepinsek Mary Kay,
Condon Elizabeth,
Fox Mary Kay,
Hirschman Jay
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.27.1_supplement.121.6
Subject(s) - calorie , environmental health , food service , food group , medicine , whole grains , food science , business , marketing , biology , endocrinology
The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) serves lunches to 32 million children on an average school day. An ongoing goal of the program is to better align school meals with dietary practices recommended in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans . The USDA Food Patterns translate the 2010 Dietary Guidelines into daily amounts of nutrient‐dense foods to eat from five food groups and their subgroups, as well as healthy amounts of oils and limits on calories from solid fats and added sugars (SoFAS). One objective of SNDA‐IV was to assess for the first time the potential contribution of school meals to daily food intakes recommended in USDA's Food Patterns. Between January and June 2010, school foodservice managers in a national sample of schools completed a detailed menu survey for one week. Food items reported were linked to the MyPyramid Equivalents Database and average amounts of Food Pattern food groups available in NSLP lunches were compared with recommendations for school‐age children. On average, lunches offered one‐third or more of recommended amounts of fruit, grains, dairy foods, and oils but were low in whole grains and high in calories from SoFAS. Leading sources of SoFAS calories included flavored milk, baked desserts, and pizza/pizza products. These findings provide an important baseline against which recent regulatory changes in the NSLP can be assessed. Research supported by the USDA, Food and Nutrition Service.