School lunch satisfaction of primary and middle school students and parents in Hebei Province / 中国学校卫生

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To understand current situation of school meal program in Hebei Province and the satisfaction among students and their parents.@*Methods@#Multi-stage random cluster sampling was used to select 24 primary and secondary schools in the three cities of Shijiazhuang, Tangshan and Cangzhou in Hebei Province. A total of 2 739 students from grades 2, 5 and 8 were randomly selected, and 2 716 parents were surveyed.@*Results@#There were 958 students who were very satisfied with the school lunch, 717 who were more satisfied, 686 who were generally satisfied, 221 who were less satisfied, and 157 who were very dissatisfied. Among them, the satisfaction of students in Shijiazhuang and Tangshan was higher than that in Cangzhou(Z=51.42, P<0.01), and the satisfaction of students in urban areas was higher than that in suburbs(Z=4.12, P<0.01). The satisfaction of young students was higher than that of high students(Z=151.42, P<0.01). There were statistically significant differences in some aspects which as food hygiene, food appearance, lunch quantity, food tastes, foodpairing and lunch price among parents of students in the three cities(P<0.01).@*Conclusion@#Students and parents are generally statisfied with school lunches, but the taste of meals served in schools needs to be improved, and the government needs to invest more in school meals and provide scientific training for cafeteria staff on a regular basis. Parents’ opinions and suggestions on feeding to improve the quality of feeding.