Students' Food Intake from Home-Packed Lunches in the Traditional versus Balanced School Day.

PURPOSE: To assess the type and quantity of foods children brought and consumed at school in the balanced school day (BSD), with two 20-minute eating periods, versus the traditional schedule (TS), with one 20-minute lunch. METHODS: Direct observation identified food items and amounts in BSD and TS lunches of grade 3 and 4 students (n = 321). RESULTS: The mean (SD) servings of foods packed in BSD lunches were significantly higher than the TS lunches for milk and alternatives (0.69 (0.70) vs 0.47 (0.49), P = 0.02), sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs; 0.91 (1.24) vs 0.57 (0.99), P = 0.01), and snacks (2.74 (1.55) vs 2.24 (1.48), P < 0.01). Regardless of schedule, only 40.8% of students had vegetables packed in their lunch, whereas 92.8% had snacks. When comparing foods eaten, SSBs and snacks remained significantly higher in the BSD (0.75 (1.02) vs 0.48 (0.83), P = 0.03; 2.37 (1.44) vs 1.93 (1.36), P = 0.01, respectively). The proportion of children (%) whose consumption met one-third of Canada's Food Guide recommendations for vegetables and fruit was low (27.5% BSD, 31.0% TS). CONCLUSIONS: The BSD may have unintended negative consequences on the type and amount of foods packed in school lunches. Support for families should focus on encouraging more vegetables and fruit and fewer SSBs and snacks in packed lunches.

Understanding the link between childhood maltreatment and violent delinquency: what do schools have to add?

Child maltreatment constitutes significant risk for adolescent delinquency. Although an ecological model has been proposed to explain this relationship, most studies focus on individual risk factors. Prospective data from 1,788 students attending 23 schools were used to examine the additive influence of childhood maltreatment, individual-level risk factors, and school-level variables assessed at the beginning of Grade 9 on delinquency 4 to 6 months later. Individual-level results indicated that being male, experiencing childhood maltreatment, and poor parental nurturing were predictors of violent delinquency. School climate also played a significant role: Given the same individual risk profile, a student attending a school that was perceived by students as safe was less likely to engage in violent delinquency than was a student attending a school perceived to be unsafe. Moreover, the impact of childhood maltreatment on risk for engaging in violent delinquency was somewhat mitigated by schools' participation in a comprehensive violence prevention program.