A recent qualitative study published in Preventing Chronic Disease explores school food service directors’ knowledge and beliefs about ultraprocessed foods in school meals. Ultraprocessed foods have been shown to make up nearly two-thirds of the calories in U.S. youths’ diets and have been linked to poorer diet quality and increased risk of chronic disease outcomes. Engaging school food service directors—who oversee all aspects of food service in schools including menu planning and procurement—is integral to efforts to reduce ultraprocessed foods in schools.
Researchers conducted interviews with 20 California school food service directors from low-income, predominantly rural districts in the San Joaquin Valley between January and June 2024. Study results revealed that one-third of the food service directors were unfamiliar with the term, “ultraprocessed foods.” Although many perceived ultraprocessed foods as less healthy than scratch-cooked foods, they had varied understanding of why that is so. While some food service directors perceived that ultraprocessed foods available in schools that meet USDA school meal standards were healthier than those available from grocery stores, others perceived that they were "marginally different". Some cited reasons to use ultraprocessed foods, including food safety and student acceptance, noting that the latter can be important in school meals’ role in combating food insecurity. Others described their commitment to providing good nutrition and reducing ultraprocessed food. Most food service directors also perceived that scratch cooking tastes better than ultraprocessed food and provides flexibility to adapt recipes to student’s taste.
The study’s authors suggest that training and education could improve school food service directors’ ability to identify and reduce ultraprocessed foods in school meals. Future research should examine whether clearer food labeling, family engagement, staff education, and other strategies could help schools utilize less-processed foods while maintaining student participation in school meal programs.
This study was conducted by Anjali Gupta, Alix Duran Gomez, Donna Matheson, Aditi Sharma, Anisha Patel, and Andrea Pedroza-Tobias with Stanford University School of Medicine, Viviane Richard with Geneva University Hospitals, Lorrene Ritchie, Christina Hecht, and Kenneth Hecht with the Nutrition Policy Institute, Ashley de la Rosa with the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and Deiglis Delgado and Genoveva Islas with Cultiva La Salud. This work was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases–funded DREAMS Center for Diabetes Translation Research under award number P30DK092924, the Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute,the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under award no. K24HL169841 and the William and Nancy Thompson Family Foundation.