Chef-prepared food gets kids eating more school lunches, study says
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* Natalie McGill

Having a chef make lunch may not just get teens to eat their meal — it may get them to eat more vegetables, according to a recent study.

A volunteer chef’s new pizza dishes at an upstate New York high school resulted in a 19.3 percent increase in students buying a National School Lunch Program meal, according to a Cornell University Food and Brand Lab study published online Aug. 27 in *Appetite*.

The students also ate more vegetables — specifically salad — as a side dish. A total of 87.1 percent of students ate more vegetables with the new pizza dishes, compared to nearly 75 percent of students before it was introduced, the study said.

The pilot study was meant to model the federal Chefs Move to Schools program, which places chefs in schools to provide nutrition education and new meals that fall in line with National School Lunch Program nutrition standards, said study author Andrew Hanks, PhD, who was a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University Food and Brand Lab at the time of the study.

The National School Lunch Program is a federal program providing free or reduced cost nutritional meals to students in schools nationwide.

“Really the priority for us was to get more kids to buy lunch,” said Hanks, who is now an assistant professor of consumer sciences at Ohio State University’s Department of Human Sciences. “The chef used the foods available at the school to prepare meals and she still had to comply with school meal standards. But our primary focus was to increase school lunch sales.”

For the study, a chef, whose specialty was French cuisine, surveyed the high school’s lunch system for three days and received education from food services staff about school lunch requirements.

With their guidance and her creativity, the chef created three different types of pizza — one of the more popular lunch items — and a ranch-flavored hamburger, the study said.

A total of 33 percent of students purchased a National School Lunch Program meal, compared to 27.2 percent before the new dishes were introduced — a 19.3 percent increase. An additional 9.3 percent of students who already participated in the National School Lunch Program bought the new dishes — an increase from 65.3 percent, to 74.6 percent.

One takeaway from the research is that the Chefs Move to Schools program is an opportunity to get children to eat healthier, Hanks said.

“If it’s a lower income area, this type of program could increase the percentage of the lunch that kids are eating,” Hanks told *The Nation’s Health*. “That’s a good thing because you want them to get the calories. School lunches are nutritious meals.”

Hanks said the program is an opportunity for school lunch staff to introduce different dishes that are not as calorie-rich as pizza, and to think about what can be paired with certain dishes to get kids to eat healthier.

It may be useful for some schools to break up some of the components of the Chefs Move to Schools program, he said. For example, the pilot study did not include the classroom nutrition education portion.

It is also important for the chef to establish a good working relationship with the existing school food services staff, Hanks said.

“In our case, the chef came in for an initial visit to see the food in the cafeteria, and to be educated about school food because school food is a very different world compared to other restaurant settings,” he said. “Once approached that way, the doors opened and they, the school chef and outside chef, were able to find a common ground that led to a great success on the event day.”

To view the study abstract, visit [www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019566631400436X](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019566631400436X).

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association