Competitive foods, discrimination, and participation in the National School Lunch Program

Competitive foods, discrimination, and participation in the National School Lunch Program

Meals served through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) must meet rigorous nutritional standards; however, barriers to student participation may limit the program's health and social equity benefits. Unsubsidized meals and food offerings competing with the NSLP offerings in school lunch e...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of public health (1971) Vol. 101; no. 8; pp. 1380 - 1386
Main Authors: Bhatia, Rajiv, Jones, Paula, Reicker, Zetta
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States American Public Health Association 01-08-2011
Subjects:
Adolescent
Child
Children & youth
Competition
Elementary schools
Financial analysis
Food
Food programs
Food service
Food Services
Government, Politics, and Law
Humans
Intervention
Low income groups
Meals
Nutrition
Nutritive Value
Public health
San Francisco
School lunches
Schools
Secondary schools
Students
Task forces
United States
San Francisco
United States
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Description
Summary:Meals served through the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) must meet rigorous nutritional standards; however, barriers to student participation may limit the program's health and social equity benefits. Unsubsidized meals and food offerings competing with the NSLP offerings in school lunch environments may be lowering qualified student participation either directly or via identification of subsidized low-income students or stigmatization of the NSLP. We document a pilot intervention conducted in San Francisco in 2009 and 2010 that demonstrated gains in NSLP participation after removal of separate competitive à la carte lunch meal offerings. Our observations suggest the need for greater attention to the potential discriminatory effects of competitive foods and to the issue of stigma by school nutrition program administrators, researchers, regulators, and policymakers.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
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Peer Reviewed
R. Bhatia initiated the intervention and wrote the article. P. Jones managed the overall intervention and cowrote the article. Z. Reicker designed and implemented the pilot project and provided the evaluation data.
Contributors
ISSN:0090-0036
1541-0048
DOI:10.2105/ajph.2011.300134