Department of Pediatrics-Nutrition, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Child Obes. 2012 Aug;8(4):364-8. doi: 10.1089/chi.2012.0012.
Considerable effort has been put forth to improve the nutritional quality of school meals by the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). However, a large percentage of children do not obtain their meals from school and instead bring lunch from home. Little research has focused on the content of these lunches. The purpose of the current study was to examine differences between school lunch and lunch brought from home.
Children in the 2nd grade from seven schools in a large suburban school district were observed on three separate days. A total of 2107 observations were made, with 38.5% of these being lunches brought from home. Chi-squared analyses evaluated differences in the presence of specific food items between school lunch and lunch brought from home.
Compared to children with a school lunch, children with a lunch brought from home were significantly less likely to have fruits (75.9% vs. 45.3%), vegetables (29.1% vs. 13.2%), and dairy (70.0% vs. 41.8%) (p < 0.001). Children with a lunch from home were more likely to have snacks high in sugar and/or fat (17.5% vs. 60.0%) and non 100% fruit juice/fruit drink (0.3% vs. 47.2%) (p < 0.001) than children with a school lunch.
The NSLP has been widely criticized; however, conducting a comparison in this manner demonstrates advantages to children obtaining school lunches. Although it was beyond the scope of this study to examine diet quality (e.g., actual intake and nutrient/caloric density), these results provide compelling evidence that lunches brought from home should be an area of emphasis for research and intervention.
国家学校午餐计划（NSLP）为提高学校餐的营养质量做出了巨大努力。然而，仍有很大比例的儿童不在学校就餐，而是从家里带午餐。很少有研究关注这些午餐的内容。本研究的目的是检查学校午餐和从家里带来的午餐之间的差异。
在一个大的郊区学区的七所学校的二年级学生在三天内被观察。共观察到 2107 次，其中 38.5%的是从家里带来的午餐。卡方分析评估了学校午餐和从家里带来的午餐中特定食物的存在差异。
与吃学校午餐的儿童相比，从家里带午餐的儿童水果（75.9%比 45.3%）、蔬菜（29.1%比 13.2%）和奶制品（70.0%比 41.8%）的摄入量明显较少（p<0.001）。从家里带午餐的儿童更有可能吃高糖和/或高脂肪的零食（17.5%比 60.0%）和非 100%果汁/果味饮料（0.3%比 47.2%）（p<0.001），而不是吃学校午餐的儿童。
国家学校午餐计划受到了广泛的批评；然而，以这种方式进行比较表明，儿童获得学校午餐有优势。虽然本研究的范围超出了检查饮食质量（例如，实际摄入量和营养素/卡路里密度），但这些结果提供了令人信服的证据，表明从家里带来的午餐应该是研究和干预的重点领域。
