BGSU alumna Shannon Brown, left, studied the factors impacting high school students' food choices for her master's thesis, under the direction of Laura Landry-Meyer, family and consumer sciences.

Why doesn’t Johnny eat right? BGSU study looks at student
food choices

Concerned about what your kids are eating for lunch at school? You might want to take a closer look at what food’s available there—and at home.

Shannon Brown did just that earlier this year via a survey of Wood County high school students, who were asked about their cafeteria choices for her master’s degree thesis at BGSU.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Brown found that while nearly two-thirds of the 144 surveyed students felt they had “a lot of” knowledge to make healthy food choices, only 9 percent said they did so all the time.

The reasons for the disparity become more complex, however, than peer influences and loss of parental control at school, say Brown and her thesis adviser, Laura Landry-Meyer of the Human Development and Family Studies Program within BGSU’s School of Family and Consumer Sciences.

One major factor has been the introduction into schools of “competitive foods”—any foods sold to students in foodservice areas during meal periods in competition with federal government meal programs.

The United States Department of Agriculture sets nutritional rules for its school lunch program, which has been increasingly embroiled in a struggle for students’ stomachs with encroaching fast food and soft drinks. Companies have gotten their feet in the doors of cash-strapped schools with offers to help purchase athletic equipment, for instance, creating both a conflict with nutrition and a resulting public policy issue, Brown and Landry-Meyer say.

It also becomes an obesity issue, adds Landry-Meyer, pointing out that if the tide of childhood obesity isn’t stemmed, “the social implication is huge.”

Nationwide, 15 percent of children are overweight and another 14 percent are at risk for being overweight, based on calculations of body mass index, Brown notes. Thus, as a result of unhealthy nutritional habits now, roughly 30 percent of American youngsters face possibly increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and other serious future health problems, she says.

Those who seek change need to know what to target, according to Landry-Meyer. And since 95 percent of all adolescents are in public schools, the schools are the first place to look, adds Brown, who received her master’s degree in May and next month begins a job with the Children’s Hunger Alliance in Columbus.

If the results of her survey are indicative of the broader high school population, adolescents have acquired information about nutrition, so emphasis should lean toward limiting their accessibility to unhealthy food, Landry-Meyer says. If schools would reduce students’ options by keeping junk food off-limits, or by replacing pop machines with water or 100-percent fruit or vegetable juice, “you’re forcing their hand,” she maintains.

Competitive foods have a place in schools, but they need to include healthy choices, says Brown, advocating salads and other low-fat foods, as well as beverage machines stocked with juice and water.

Schools can also be more creative in their presentation, such as including vegetables with quesadillas, the Bowling Green resident says. But creativity with nutrition is usually a low priority with schools, she continues, noting that school food service directors generally don’t need nutrition training to be hired. That may come later, but initial training for prospective directors is geared more to budgeting and food safety, according to Brown, whose bachelor’s degree in child and family community service is also from BGSU.

While school lunch program meals are the most nutritious for students, lunches packed at home can be the next best thing—if done right, she says. “Obviously, parents have a huge role, especially with younger children,” to set the stage for healthier eating when they’re older, she adds. “Parents could be proactive.”

Eating meals together as a family is important, as is modeling of healthy eating that can take place during those meals. Once babies graduate to table food and start eating out with their parents, unhealthy cultural influences come into play, Brown points out, citing typical toddler restaurant fare of corn dogs and French fries as an example.

Her study of those outside influences—cultural, school and family—made Brown’s research stand out, Landry-Meyer notes. She was both surprised and encouraged, for instance, to learn that almost half of Brown’s survey sample ate with their families four or more times a week, and more than half (53.5 percent) rated eating together as fairly or very important.

“Kids don’t develop and go to school in a vacuum,” Landry-Meyer says. “Family has a big input.”