Analyzing the Association between Student Weight Status and School Meal Participation: Evidence from the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study.

Sarah Bardin,Alice Ann Gola

doi:10.3390/nu13010017

Abstract

Childhood obesity remains a pressing public health concern. Children consume a substantial amount of their caloric intake while in school, making the passage of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) in 2010 and the subsequent improvements to the school meal standards a key policy change. Using data from the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study, this paper seeks to re-examine the association between students’ (N = 1963) weight status and participation in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP) since the implementation of these policy changes to determine whether, and how, this relationship has changed. After controlling for a wide array of student characteristics and school-level fixed effects, findings from the multivariate regression analyses indicate that usual participation in the school meal programs has no clear association with students’ weight status, which contradicts findings from earlier studies conducted prior to the passage of the HHFKA. These findings are discussed in relation to changes in the demographic composition of usual NSLP participants over time.

Highlights

Obesity rates for children ages 2 to 10 continue to climb
This paper sought to estimate the relationship between usual participation in the school meal programs and student weight status, in order to assess how these relationships may have changed since the implementation of the updated meal patterns
The models controlled for a wide array of student characteristics along with school-level fixed effects, making it less likely that this association was the result of selection bias influencing who participates in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), it is still possible that unobserved differences between participants and nonparticipants could have led to bias in these estimates

Summary

Introduction

Between 2015 and 2016, approximately 19% of children were affected by obesity [1], and there was a higher prevalence of obesity among school-age children (6 to 19 years old) compared to preschool-age children. Another study found that among a sample of 51,505 children, 53% of children with obesity as adolescents were affected by overweight or obesity at age 5 [3]. Given these concerning trends, preventing the onset of obesity in childhood may be critical in preventing later cardiovascular disease [4]

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Discussion

Conclusion