School meals are an essential source of nutritious food for many children, particularly low-income children, across the nation, whether schools are providing in-person, distance or hybrid education during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, many districts are experiencing decreased participation in school meal programs. In an effort to support school districts in increasing school meal participation – and thus improve children's food security during the pandemic – the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) partnered with Stanford Medicine Department of Pediatrics and the School Nutrition Association to develop a fact sheet for school districts. Titled "Boosting School Meal Participation - Tips from Districts", it provides a checklist of strategies for school meal pick-ups, ways to offer more meals, keeping meals appealing, communication to families, and ideas for community partnerships. The fact sheet includes an update on nationwide waivers issued by the United States Department of Agriculture that provide flexibilities to school nutrition services during the pandemic. It also highlights resources from collaborating organizations including recipes and menu-planning, back-to-school and reopening planning, virtual nutrition education, and more. The fact sheet is available for download online. The authors of and contributors to the fact sheet, including NPI's Christina Hecht, are members of the ad hoc COVID-19 School Nutrition Implications Working Group, jointly supported by Healthy Eating Research, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Nutrition and Obesity Policy Research and Evaluation Network (NOPREN). This project was funded by the San Joaquin Valley Health Fund COVID-19 Response Cluster, managed by The Center at Sierra Health Foundation.
Lorrene Ritchie, director and UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) specialist at the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI), Hannah Thompson, NPI epidemiologist and research scientist at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, and Marisa Neelon, UCCE nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor, were quoted in an October 12, 2020 article in The Daily Californian titled "UC Berkeley study shows intervention affect school lunch participation." The article highlights a collaborative three-year study with San Francisco Unified School District Student Nutrition Services (SFUSD SNS) to evaluate a dining redesign intervention with the goal of increasing school lunch participation among SFUSD middle and high school students. The article highlights research findings that were published in two journals, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and Childhood Obesity. Dr. Thompson is quoted, “While interventions helped stave off the decline of student lunch participation, a big conclusion of this study is that larger economic policies and conditions are actually much more impactful on participation.” Dr. Ritchie is quoted, "We found that these positive perceptions towards school lunch also increased reports of consumption of fruits and vegetables among students very modestly.” Neelon added, “Increasing participation and consumption of school meals can potentially address the shortfall in adolescent's intake of fruits and vegetables. Additionally, the closure of schools due to COVID-19 has elevated the importance of school meals to meet the nutritional needs of food-insecure families.” The study was funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) through a grant from the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). Read the full article online.
Schools across the US are removing chocolate milk from their offerings in an effort to reduce students' added sugar intake and support their long-term health. University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) researchers' latest study exploring the effects of these policies on students' milk intake was featured in an article in Feedstuffs. The article highlights the researchers findings that chocolate milk removal policies produced no significant reductions in average intake per student of calcium, protein or vitamin D from milk and that added sugar consumption from milk declined significantly, by 3.1 g per student. The study was conducted by NPI affiliated researchers Hannah Thompson and Esther Park from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in collaboration with NPI researchers Lorrene Ritchie and Wendi Gosliner, and Kristine Madsen from the Berkeley Food Institute and UC Berkeley School of Public Health.
Schools across the nation are instituting new policies to remove chocolate milk from their meal programs in an effort to reduce students' added sugar intake. These efforts have some stakeholders concerned that this policy may lead to a decrease in students' milk consumption--specifically the essential nutrients that milk provides such as calcium, protein and vitamin D--and may also lead to an increase in milk waste. However, the latest study from the Nutrition Policy Institute shows promising results that may alleviate these concerns. The study found that although the number of students that selected milk during lunch dropped by about 14% in the year the chocolate milk removal policy was implemented, there was no significant difference in the proportion of milk wasted before and after policy implementation. Further, although milk consumption declined by about 1 ounce per student post policy implementation, there was no significant decrease in the average amount of calcium, protein, or vitamin D consumed from milk. Finally, the chocolate milk removal policy did result in a significant reduction in added sugar consumption from milk, by an average of 3.1 grams per student. These results suggest that a school meal chocolate milk removal policy may reduce middle and high school students' added sugar intake without compromising intake of essential nutrients nor increasing milk waste. The study was conducted by NPI affiliated researchers Hannah Thompson and Esther Park from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health in collaboration with NPI researchers Lorrene Ritchie and Wendi Gosliner, and Kristine Madsen from the Berkeley Food Institute and UC Berkeley School of Public Health. The study was published online on August 27, 2020 in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease. The full study is available online.
Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) director and cooperative extension specialist Lorrene Ritchie commented on why school meals matter now more than ever as the United States is grappling with two major public health crises, the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism and inequities. The invited commentary was published online on August 20, 2020 in the journal Public Health Nutrition. Ritchie's commentary describes how the USDA National School Lunch Program (NSLP), which provided over 4.8 billion lunches to nearly 30 million children in the US during the 2018-2019 school year, supports improved food security for all students. This is important as students from lower income non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic families who have higher rates of participation in the NSLP than their non-minority counterparts. Given the historic levels of food insecurity Americans are now facing due to the COVID-19-related economic downturn, and the disproportionate effect it is having on black families, Ritchie also cites the importance of the NSLP in supporting health equity through improved nutrition. Ritchie shares evidence from a recent nationally representative study conducted by colleagues at Boston University School of Medicine which shows that NSLP participating students' diet quality improved after the school meal nutrition standards were updated in 2012-2013 to align with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, as mandated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) of 2010. Ritchie closes her commentary requesting public health researchers, practitioners and policy makers (1) object to any rollbacks to the HHFKA nutrition standards, and (2) advocate for school meals to be made available to all students without additional charge. The commentary is available online.