Measuring the impact of a school food programme on food sales in New Zealand

The School Food Programme of the Heart Foundation of New Zealand is a healt h promotion programme which aims to improve the health of the school commun ity by increasing children's access to foods which are nutritious, safe and sufficient in quantity The programme was introduced to New Zealand primary and secondary schools in 1989. Outcome evaluation undertaken in 1992 concl uded that the programme had a positive impact in creating healthier school environments. As a result, programme implementation continued. The objectiv e of this study was to identify whether the school food service has altered , as a result of programme implementation. The main outcome measures were f ood service staff reports on changes in sales of specific food items. Two h undred schools out of a total of 2730 schools in New Zealand were successfu l in achieving Heartbeat Awards by meeting all the programme criteria betwe en January 1996 and December 1997. Thirty-two schools achieved awards in su ccessive years, and data from all 232 awards were included in the analysis. Schools were categorized according to the number of years that they had pa rticipated in the programme. Increasing participation in the programme was found to be significantly associated with a reduction in the sales of dough nuts and cream buns (p = 0.01), pies and sausage rolls (p = 0.009), crisps (p = 0.0065) and sweets (p = 0.004), and art increase in sales of sandwiche s and filled rolls (p = 0.0005). Other foods all showed changes in a favour able direction, although the proportions did not change significantly over the years. Limitations of this study include self-selection bias and the us e of self-reported data. However, the results of the evaluation indicate th at the School Food Programme is successful in achieving its aim of influenc ing the school environment by improving healthy food choices, and that impr ovements have continued over 7 years in the programme.