Effect of a la carte and snack bar foods at school on children's lunchtimeintake of fruits and vegetables

Objectives To compare lunch fruit, juice, and vegetable (FJV) intake of fou rth-grade students who receive only National School Lunch Program meals and fifth-grade students who also have access to a school snack bar and to com pare FJV intake by meal source among fifth-grade students. Design Cross-sectional study: students completed FJV preference questionnai res and 5 days of lunch food records in classrooms. Subjects/setting 312 fourth- and 282 fifth-grade students in south Texas. Main outcome measures Mean FJV consumption. Statistical analyses performed Descriptive statistics, correlation analyses , analysis of variance, analysis of covariance. Results Fourth-grade students (n=312) consumed significantly more fruits, j uices, and vegetables (0.80 serving) than fifth-grade students (n=282) (0.6 0 serving). Students whose parents reported a high school education or less consumed more regular and total vegetables than students whose parents rep orted some college or higher education. There were no interaction effects a mong gender, grade, ethnic, or family education groups. Fifth-grade student s who ate only snack bar meals consumed significantly less total fruits, ju ices, and vegetables (0.40 serving) than fifth-grade students who ate schoo l lunch meals (0.82 serving). Controlling for FJV preferences did not chang e the main effect for grade level in the FJV consumption models. Applications/conclusions FJV consumption during school lunch is low. School foodservice staff should identify FJV items that middle school students pr efer and increase availability of those items in middle school cafeterias a nd snack bars.