School Lunch Environmental Factors Impacting Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

Objective: Assess impact of school lunch environmental factors on fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption in second and third grade students.

Design: Cross-sectional observations in 1 school year.

Participants: Students from 14 elementary schools in 4 New York City boroughs (n = 877 student-tray observations).

Main outcome measure(s): Dependent variables were F&V consumption collected by visual observation. Independent variables included school lunch environmental factors, and individual-level and school-level demographics.

Analysis: Hierarchical linear modeling was used with F&V consumption as the outcome variable, and relevant independent variables included in each model.

Results: Slicing or precutting of fruits and having lunch after recess were positively associated (P < .05) with .163- and .080-cup higher fruit consumption across all students, respectively. Preplating of vegetables on lunch trays, having 2 or more vegetable options, and having lunch after recess were positively associated (P < .05) with .024-, .009-, and .007-cup higher vegetable consumption across all students, respectively.

Conclusions and implications: Although there was a small increase in intake, results of the study support that some school lunch environmental factors affect children's F&V consumption, with some factors leading to more impactful increases than others. Slicing of fruits seems most promising in leading to greater fruit consumption and should be further tested.