As Children Move Up in School, Nutrition Declines
April 12, 2004
By Aaron Levin, Science Writer
Health Behavior News Service
Availability of middle school snack bars may be part of the reason, say Baylor College of Medicine researchers Karen Weber Cullen, Dr.P.H., R.D., L.D., and Issa Zakeri, Ph.D., Their study appears in the American Journal of Public Health.
Cullen and Zakeri asked fourth- and fifth-grade students to document what they ate for lunch and where the food came from. The students were quizzed again the following year when the original fourth-graders had moved up from elementary to middle school and the original fifth-graders had spent two years in middle school.
All the fourth-grade students received lunches from the National School Lunch Program, which offers participants two servings of fruits and vegetables and eight ounces of milk a day. Current national standards call for five servings of fruits, vegetables and 100 percent juice each day.
Cullen and Zakeri found that as the Texas students moved from fourth to fifth grade, the number of fruit, regular (not fried) vegetable and milk servings they ate declined by about a third. During the same time, the number of servings consumed of high-fat vegetables (like French fries) or sweetened drinks increased by two-thirds.
Among the students who were in fifth grade at the start of the study, high-fat vegetable consumption had increased the next year by 30 percent and milk use rose by 14 percent, while eating regular vegetables and sweetened drinks dropped by 10 percent and 12 percent respectively.
The slight increase in milk drinking and the decline in sweetened beverage consumption among the sixth-graders are the reverse of findings in other studies, Cullen says. This may be explained by the introduction of bottled water during the second year, which might have meant that students were choosing water instead of sweetened drinks.
The school lunch program meals given to elementary school students meet dietary recommendations, but 35 percent to 40 percent of the meals eaten by middle school students came exclusively from snack bars, Cullen says.
“Those students consumed fewer fruits, regular vegetables and milk and consumed greater amounts of sweetened beverages and high-fat vegetables than what they reported in previous years, when they only received lunch program meals,” she says.
“Low fruit, vegetable and milk consumption patterns that continue into adulthood may contribute to an increased risk for the development of chronic diseases,” she warns.
This project was funded in part by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture/Agricultural Research Service and the Cancer Research Foundation of
America.
Health Behavior News Service: (202) 387-2829 or www.hbns.org.
Interviews: Contact Karen Weber Cullen at (713) 798-4712 or kcullen@bcm.tmc.edu.
American Journal of Public Health: (202) 777-2511 or www.ajph.org.
Center for the Advancement of Health
Contact: Ira R. Allen
Director of Public Affairs
202.387.2829
press@cfah.org