School Dietitians' Satisfaction with and Needs for School Meal Service Support Centers / 대한지역사회영양학회지

The purpose of this study was to investigate school dietitians' satisfaction with and needs for School Meal Service Support Centers. A web-based on-line survey was conducted with 1,102 nutrition teachers or school dietitians using four School Meal Service Support Centers during the summer of 2011. The data from 578 respondents (52.5%), consisting of 165 (44.4%), 334 (53.4%), 41 (67.2%), and 38 (86.4%) dietitians using Seoul, Gyeonggi, Suncheon and Gyeongju centers, respectively, were analyzed. The main reason for using the centers was subsidies from local governments. The dietitians using the metropolitan centers, which were Seoul and Gyeonggi centers, tended to buy agricultural products through the centers only, and those using local centers, which were Suncehon and Gyeongju centers, bought those products from the private suppliers as well as from the centers. The dietitians' overall level of satisfaction with the centers was not high showing 3.3 out of 5 points; it was significantly associated with the operating system and services of the centers such as system efficiency, delivery accuracy, communication, and information provision rather than the agricultural products provided by the centers. The dietitians preferred joint operation of the centers by local governments and producers' groups. They wanted School Meal Service Support Centers to be evaluated every year. It was suggested that efforts should be made to improve the operation system and service of School Meal Service Support Centers for improving dietitians' satisfaction with the centers. In addition, an evaluation system for School Meal Service Support Centers should be implemented soon based on school dietitians' needs.

Comparing School Lunch Program Served at Dining Room with Program at Classroom for Sanitation and Contentment at One Middle School / 대한지역사회영양학회지

School lunch programs at middle schools have increased in quantity. However, the quality of them is in fact not enough to reach the satisfactory standard, especially in the aspect of environment of school meals. It is true that there seems to be little attention to the environment. In this study, degree of satisfaction about school lunch program was surveyed for students in one middle school. Focus of survey was sanitary condition about the dining room and classroom where they have lunch. First, in order to investigate the degree of satisfaction about their dining place, questionnaire was sent out to the students at one middle school in Seoul. Questionnaire was made with reference to previous research. Second, for the study on environmental sanitation, dropping bacteria (general bacteria) is measured in three parts of dining place (entrance, serving table, dining table). Petriplate film was exposed to the responsible places for 15 minutes and then cultivated at the temperature of 32degrees C for 48 hours before counting the number of bacteria formed. For the statistical analysis, SPSS 12.0 was used. The results of the study show that students had more satisfaction in dining room service than in classroom service. Important factors for the meal program such as "taste of food", "amount of food per student", "state of keeping warm", "appearance of food", "diversity of menu", and "kindliness of feeding staff" had more points in dining room than in classroom. For the environmental and sanitary aspect, the result of dropping bacteria (general bacteria) in dining room and classroom showed that table (5.00) and fooddistribution corner (8.67) of dining room were cleaner than those of classroom (P < 0.05). Making a good environment for school feeding will have a positive effect on the improvement of satisfaction and sanitation of school feeding. There should be expansion of dining room service for the students.

Nutrient Intake Determined by School Lunch Plate Waste and by self-reported Food Consumption of Selected High School Students in Seoul

The Purposes of this study were to assess high school students' nutrient consumption at the ordinary time and to analyze nutrient contents and nutrition consumption of lunch. The questionnaires for self-reported food consumption were distributed to 210 students enrolled in a boy's high school and a girl's high school located in Seoul area. A final response rate was 87.1%, excluding responses that had significant missing data. Data of self-reported food consumption and BMI(Body Mass Index) were analyzed with descriptive analysis and t-test using SPSS Win(ver. 12.0). To measure the serving size and the waste amount, data were collected for three meals in a three day period at each school. A weighed plate method was employed to measure plate wastes and consumption of the menus served. Nutrient analyses for the served and consumed menus were performed using CAN-PRO. The result of nutrient intake determined by self-reported food consumption demonstrated 74.2% of boys and 70.0% of the girls did not meet EAR(Estimated Average Requirement) for calcium. In addition, the data collection showed that 60.2% boys and 26.7% girls did not consume EAR for Vitamin B1. Nutrient analyses of the served and consumed menus at school lunch were compared with 1/3 of the Dietary Reference Intakes(DRIs) for this age group. The served menus did not meet 1/3 of the Recommended Intake(RI) for calcium, iron, and vitamin B2. In contrast, the menu provided to students exceeded almost five times(490%) more than the sodium needed for 1/3 of the Adequate Intake(AI). Considering the amount of the students' plate waste, intake of vitamin A and vitamin C were below 1/3 of the RI, and calcium, iron, and vitamin B2 intake were also reduced. Students' sodium consumption still exceeded 1/3 of the AI at 340.0%.

Effects of School Lunch Program on Nutritional Knowledge and Attitude, and Dietary Behavior of Korean Middle School Students / 대한지역사회영양학회지

School Lunch Program (SLP) should provide adequate and qualitative nutritional food for student's growth and proper food habit. With this fact, this study divided 524 middle school students who resided in Jeonju, Jellabukdo into two groups, SLP or non SLP according to whether they were provided SLP or not. Then this research estimate each group's nutritional knowledge, nutritional attitude, dietary behavior, balance of three meals, and health checking their clinical symptom to investigate the effects of the SLP. This research applied anthropometric data, questionnaires and food intake data using 24 hours recall method. Each group's age average was same as 14.0 years old respectively. The average score of nutritional knowledge and condition of balance of lunch were significantly higher in SLP group than those of non-SLP group, although, there were no significant differences in the scores of nutritional attitude, dietary behavior, and balance of breakfast and dinner within both groups. This research showed that SLP had positive role on nutritional knowledge and balanced lunch. However, current SLP is not sufficient to cause change the nutritional attitude and dietary behavior. To make more applicable and effective result of SLP leading nutritional attitude changes and development of appropriate dietary behavior, certain level of nutritional education to the student may be important.

Strategies to Improve Nutritional Management in Primary School Lunch Program

The Korea School Lunch Program mandates that school meals should safeguard the health and well-being of our children. School meals provide a nutritious diet that contains at least 1/3 of the daily Recommended Dietary Allowances of necessary nutrients at reasonable prices. This study was performed to assess the nutritional management of primary school meals, and to provide basic data for improvement of school meal nutritional guidelines. Three hundred and thirty six dietitians who worked at primary schools were recruited using a stratified sampling method. A survey was done by e-mail with a set of questionnaires about nutritional meal management. During school lunch planning, dietitians referred nutrition standards with priority, followed by students' food preferences and food hygiene. They considered energy as a most important nutrient during primary school lunch planning, followed by protein and calcium. Protein is usually over-served, whereas iron, vitamin A and calcium are usually under-served during primary school meal planning. For first and second grade primary students, grains, meat and vegetable side dishes seemed to be large compared to their eating capacity. Over 92% of school dietitians agreed the needs of food group standards for primary school lunch program. For making a checklist of the school lunch program, energy, protein and calcium were highly recommended, and meat.fish.egg group, vegetable.fruit group and dairy group were also highly recommended by school dietitians. Cooking method was also highly recommended. School dietitians proposed that remodeling of school kitchens and new cooking machine were the most important factors for improving school lunch system. These results suggest that food standards should be established for health-oriented nutritional management of primary school lunch programs. Nutritional checklists could include nutrient-rich foods and food groups, and items about cooking methods.

Strategies to Improve Nutritional Management in Primary School Lunch Program

The Korea School Lunch Program mandates that school meals should safeguard the health and well-being of our children. School meals provide a nutritious diet that contains at least 1/3 of the daily Recommended Dietary Allowances of necessary nutrients at reasonable prices. This study was performed to assess the nutritional management of primary school meals, and to provide basic data for improvement of school meal nutritional guidelines. Three hundred and thirty six dietitians who worked at primary schools were recruited using a stratified sampling method. A survey was done by e-mail with a set of questionnaires about nutritional meal management. During school lunch planning, dietitians referred nutrition standards with priority, followed by students' food preferences and food hygiene. They considered energy as a most important nutrient during primary school lunch planning, followed by protein and calcium. Protein is usually over-served, whereas iron, vitamin A and calcium are usually under-served during primary school meal planning. For first and second grade primary students, grains, meat and vegetable side dishes seemed to be large compared to their eating capacity. Over 92% of school dietitians agreed the needs of food group standards for primary school lunch program. For making a checklist of the school lunch program, energy, protein and calcium were highly recommended, and meat.fish.egg group, vegetable.fruit group and dairy group were also highly recommended by school dietitians. Cooking method was also highly recommended. School dietitians proposed that remodeling of school kitchens and new cooking machine were the most important factors for improving school lunch system. These results suggest that food standards should be established for health-oriented nutritional management of primary school lunch programs. Nutritional checklists could include nutrient-rich foods and food groups, and items about cooking methods.

Assessment of the nutritional value of the plate waste generated in School Foodservices in Kyungbuk Area

The purpose of this study was to analyse the nutrient intake of the elementary students participating in the School lunch program and to compare the amount of the plate waste generated in two school foodservice operations that were located in an urban(school A) and a rural area(school B), respectively. A plate waste analysis was conducted for each menu item to separate and quantify food waste discarded in service phases of each operation. The SPSS 10.0 for window was used for data analysis. Non-parametric test (Mann-Whitney) was adopted to determine if significant differences existed in amounts of food waste generated in school A and school B. An average of 415 meals, including 43 adult meals, were served daily in school A, while an average of 177 meals, including 24 adult meals, were served daily in school B. Throughout the study the percentage of plate waste in vegetable dishes was high in both school. The food served to the students in school A met most of the RDA set by Korean Nutrition Association except vitamin A, while that served to the students in school B satisfied RDA in all aspects. Between 10-20% of the nutrients served were discarded as plate waste(school A : 11-27%; school B : 5-14%). Students in school B took significantly more niacin than students in school A did. It should be noted, though, that the RDA was still met in both schools except the vitamin A in case of school A, even after considering the plate waste. The research results suggested that school foodservice dieticians should evaluate the acceptability of menu items based on food waste per meal, and help increase the students' awareness of the environmental impact of food waste. Further, teachers, parents and dieticians should be encouraged to provide environmental education to the students that focused on the reduction of food waste.

A biochemical evaluation of the UNICEF School lunch program given to malnourished children of San Andres Elementary School

An evaluation of the UNICEF School Feeding Program by microchemical methods was made on about 200 selected school children. One-half served as control and the other half received school lunch for one school year which consisted of one-third the daily carolie allowance recommended by the National Research Council of the PhilippinesThe mean hemoglobin level and serum protein are within the normal range. A significant increase in hemoglobin and a slight rise in serum protein may be attributed to the de-worming of the children, the consumption of undermilled rice, milk and in general to a more balanced school lunch of the childrenResults from the control group showed that in this study the greatest deficiency appeared to be in Vitamin A and carotene. The school lunch given during the feeding program did not improve on the vitamin A levels of the subjects. There is apparently a great need for whole milk and more leafy, green and yellow vegetables in the diet of these childrenThe findings showed that vitamin c is within a satisfactory ranged. It would seen that the vitamin C derived from the limited intake of fruits and vegetables in the childrens diet is enough to give a good blood serum levels of vitamin C or that the children had fruits in between meals which were not recordedThe low consumption of milk is reflected clearly in the low urinary riboflavin excretion of the control. Striking results were obtained from the subjects receiving one glass of milk on school days. A corresponding high value in serum riboflavin was noted among the subjectsAlthough a better thiamine level of excretion was obtained in comparison with urinary riboflavin, the fact still remains that more than one-third of the children failed to reach at least the "critical" level of urinary thiamine. The school lunch program which provided undermilled rice gave a 10 percent improvement in urinary excretion for thiamine. (Summary)

A Study on the School Lunch Program Served by the Elementary Schools in Muan: An Analysis of Nutrients and Diversity of Menu / 대한지역사회영양학회지

This study evaluated the quality of meals served by the elementary schools in Muan based on nutrient contents and food diversity. The contents, nutrient densities and nutrient adequacy ratios(NAR) of most nutrients were higher than those calculated from the Korean RDA. However, the content, nutrient density, and NAR of iron were lower than those calculated from the RDA for 10 to 12 year old girls. The content of sodium was somewhat high. The average number of different kinds of food and dishes per meal were 19.2 and 6.0, respectively. The more the number of dishes, the higher the NARs of calcium, calories, niacin, phosphorus and protein. However, the NAR of iron showed no correlation with the number of dishes. The meals belonging to the food group intake pattern containing fruits had more vitamin C and fiber, and less protein, lipid, and phosphorus than those belonging to the food group intake pattern not containing fruits. In conclusion, the quality of nutrition of meals served by school lunch program(SLP) was considered fairly good. However, the nutritionists should consider the iron for 10 to 12 year old girls and cut down the amount of sodium. In addition, unless the children prefer the foods served by SLP or adjust to the general aspects of SLP, SLP can't accomplish its purposes. Therefore, we suggest that nutritionists should survey children's food preference and satisfaction with the general aspects of SLP.

Menu Analysis of the National School Lunch Program : The Comparisons of the Frequency of Menu with the Students' Food Preferences

The menu planning is closely tied to the acceptability of the food and the satisfaction of the food service system to its client, therefore national school lunch program(NSLP) menu should consider the food preferences of the students. To provide approgriate information and guidelines about desirable NSLP menu planning, the comparison between the frequency of NSLP menus and food preferences of the students was performed, NSLP menus with cooking method of 776 meals were collected from 10 elementary NSLP schools in Seoul and Kyunggi province, and food preference data was surveyed with 1618 elementary school students from 4 NSLP schools in Korea in 1995. According to the cooking methods, NSLP menus served Kimchi(98.3%), rice(71.4%) and soup(71.1%) frequently. Based on the food groups, NSLP menus served vegetables most frequently(188%), followed by grains(101.4%), milk(100%), meat(57.3%), fruits(50.3%), and so on. By Spearman Rank Correlations analysis, the serving frequencies of vegetable side dishes(r=.33, p=.05) were positively correlated with the students' preference score. According to the cooking method, the serving frequencies of steamed dishes(r=1.0, p=.00), salads(r=1.0, p=.00), Kimchi(r=.85, p=.01) and rice one-dish meal(r=.80, p=.10) were positively correlated with the students' preference score. However, the serving frequencies of the main dishes(r=.13, p=.57) and soup group(r=.15, p=.57) were not significantly correlated with the students' preference score. Even though the serving frequency of fruit were negatively correlated with the students' preference score(r= -.80, p=.10). These results indicated that the NSLP menu planned the vegetable side dishes in accordance with the students' food preferences, but it planned the main dish, soup group, and meat side dish group discordantly. Therefore further efforts are needed to involve the preferred cooking methods for increasing the food acceptability. It could be used for the basic guidelines for menu planning of NSLP, and for the future improvement of NSLP in Korea.

Comparisons of Students' and their Parents' Satisfaction of School Lunch Program in middle School by Foodservice Mangement / 대한지역사회영양학회지

A study about the satisfaction of school lunch program was performed to 591 students and 541 parents in 5 middle schools by FS management system. The FS systems of the participating schools were 3 type of self-operating/traditional, self-operating/commissary and catering/delivery systems. Most joyful mealtime to students were identified as lunch because of eating with friends. Satiety after school lunch and leftover were different by FS system, such as adquate satiety greater in self-operating one and leftover food more in catering one than in the others. Foods tasted better in self-operating system than in catering one. The later was very poor for keeping soup hot and found more salty, more sweet and hotter than home meal. Students showed no difference in nutrition education but agreed greater to learning etiquette and to habit of various foods in self-operating system than in catering one. Students concluded they prefered school lunches to home-prepared lunches. Less work to prepare lunches home, better taste and nutrition, same meals to all students and nurition education were main reasons for parent to need school lunch program and they showed higher satisfaction of present school FS in self-operating system than in catering one. Parents claimed hygiene, taste, nutrition, nutrition education, food amount and service should be improved, especially in case of catering system and stressed on hygiene as the most important criteria for good school FS Management. They supported strongly school lunch program to coninue and prefered self-operating system than the others.