Could our children be choosing healthier menu items? That might just be the case. Empty plates and half-eaten scraps on cafeteria trays reveal the first real evidence that federal standards on school meals are causing children to have healthier eating habits.
New federal standards on school lunches were launched in 2012. These standards required schools to offer healthier meals, according to The Harvard Gazette. This, in particular, is important considering that 32 million students eat school means every day, and low-income students receive about half of their daily energy intake from these meals.
The researchers analyzed the food waste of about 1,030 students from four low-income urban schools in Massachusetts before and after the new USDA guidelines came into effect. In the end, the researchers found that fruit selection increased by about 23 percent-from 52.7 percent to 75.7 percent. There was also an increase in vegetable selection from 24.9 percent to 41.1 percent, according to Medical News Daily.
"There is a push from some organizations and lawmakers to weaken the new standards," said Juliana Cohen, lead author of the new study, in an interview with The Harvard Gazette. "We hope the findings, which show that students are consuming more fruits and vegetables, will discourage those efforts."
The new guidelines are meant to reduce both sodium and fat intake on school menus-and it seems like they're succeeding.
"We were surprised by the vegetable findings," said Cohen in an interview with NBC News. "We thought perhaps it was because students were eating more potato-based products like French fries, which count as a vegetable (in federal standards). We were very surprised to see that potato-based products weren't being served on study days. Kids loved fresh vegetables, especially baby carrots."
The findings reveal that the new guidelines are indeed having an impact. This could mean that children may just be healthier in the future as childhood obesity is combated.
