Should you give your child a packed lunch or let him or her eat meals prepared by the school? A new study reveals that school lunches under the recent revised guidelines of National School Lunch Program (NSLP) offer a better nutritional value than packed lunches.
In a study conducted by the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior, children in pre-K and kindergarten do receive better nutrition by eating school lunches than packed ones.
The team led by Alisha Farris wanted to know the nutritional difference between these two sets of lunches, so they observed students in pre-K and kindergarten in three rural elementary schools in Virginia. The team then grouped these participants into 10 children per group, with one member of research taking down notes and observing using their designed checklist. Observing their lunches took 5 days.
Of the more than 1,000 lunches, most were provided by the school; about 42% were packed lunches. The researchers then broke down the nutritional value of these lunches and found out that school lunches have more fiber, protein, calcium, and vitamin A than packed lunches. On the other hand, while packed lunches have more vitamin C and iron, they also have higher levels of carbohydrates, sugar, and saturated fat.
These could be because parents may tend to give their children snacks or lunches that are more savory or they often don't forget to include desserts.
However, when it comes to sodium, school lunches have more of it than packed lunches even if the children are more prone to eat processed food with the latter.
The study's limitations exist at the fact they didn't perform any analyses on the student level and took down how much of the lunch had been eaten by the students during the five-day period.
Nevertheless, the researchers hope their findings encourage a more aggressive campaign for healthier packed lunches for children.
