Improving nutrition at breakfast and after school clubs

Abstract

Background: The Government's mandatory standards for‘school food other than lunches’ were introduced in 2007 (School Food Trust) to ensure there are consistent messages about good, nutritious food across the extended school day. All maintained primary, secondary and special schools in England are legally obliged to comply with the standards. With childhood obesity levels increasing, it is essential that all schools are committed to meeting these standards. The aim of this study was to carry out independent audits of all breakfast and after school clubs at Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea primary schools in both 2009 and 2010, aiming to assess whether or not the foods and drinks being served were compliant. Methods: Two separate audit tools were used (one for breakfast and one for after school clubs) to record not only the food and drink items served, but also whether staff were aware of the standards, numbers attending, free school meal entitlement, cost to attend and cooking facilities available. These were developed in-house by the Nutrition and Dietetics Service. Specific food and drinks observed on the day were recorded and notes made about food and drinks available on other days or at other times of the year. The first round of audits were conducted from February to March 2009, before training on the standards was promoted to all clubs and delivered in January and February 2010. The second round of audits took place between May and July 2010. After each audit, schools were sent a clear and concise report of the findings and given explicit information about whether they were meeting the standards. Results: A total of 18/19 (95%) of breakfast clubs and 15/15 (100%) of after school clubs consented to be audited in 2009. In 2010, audits were carried out in 22/22 (100%) breakfast clubs and 17/17 (100%) of after school clubs. The number of breakfast clubs meeting the standards increased from 50% (9/18) to 68% (15/22). For after school clubs, the increase was from 20% (3/15) to 47% (8/17). Furthermore, the average number of areas in which each club was failing dropped from 1.8 to 1.3 for breakfast clubs and from 3.1 to 2.1 for after school clubs. However, these changes were not associated with attendance of the training session. Club performance against the standard was also not correlated with reported staff awareness of the standards. Discussion: Although there has been much improvement in the standard of food served at breakfast and after school clubs in the past year, many more changes could have been made had some schools been more proactive about the suggestions given in their original reports. Attendance at the training session appeared to have no bearing on staff awareness of the standards or club performance. Key problem areas have been highlighted for both breakfast clubs (fruit provision and drinks) and after school clubs (confectionery items, drinks and fruit), which will be useful in guiding further initiatives to improve menus. A study by Waddington et al. (2003) is one of few published works looking at breakfast club nutrition, although it highlights the substantial contribution a nutritionally balanced breakfast can make to a child's overall intake, and thus the importance of further work with schools to tackle this area. Conclusions: Although the training session provided a wealth of information about the standards, including tools for self-auditing, staff have indicated that they required more in-depth support, including information on providing food to fit a tight budget, portion sizes, the types of foods that are permitted, and menu ideas that appeal to children. Providing a nutrition resource with recipes to meet all these requirements may therefore be a good way to ensure that all clubs can meet the standards.