Dietary Intake and Lifestyle Habits of Children Aged 10–12 Years Enrolled in the School Lunch Program in Greece: A Cross Sectional Analysis

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Abstract

School Lunch programs are a common strategy to address social inequalities in food access among children, especially food insecurity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the dietary intake and lifestyle habits of children aged 10–12 years enrolled in the School Lunch Program in Greece. A cross-sectional survey of fifth and sixth grade students, School Lunch recipients (n = 609) and control subjects (n = 736), collected data on sociodemographic, nutritional and lifestyle habits via self-reported questionnaires during May–October 2019. Despite enrollment in the School Lunch Program children in this group reported consuming less meals during the day (3.47 ± 1.38 vs. 3.65 ± 1.35, p = 0.002). No differences were seen in intakes of energy and macronutrients, however School Lunch recipients reported lower intakes of cereals/potatoes and legumes but higher fruit intake (2.32 ± 1.59 vs. 1.97 ± 1.72, p < 0.05). School Lunch recipients reported 42min/d and 28min/d higher screen-time during weekdays and weekends, respectively. Linear regression highlighted that dietary quality was not associated with School Lunch enrollment but rather sleep duration and screen time had a stronger influence on dietary habits. Enrollment in a School Lunch Program was linked to sustained differences in sedentary lifestyle habits but less so in dietary habits.

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Most cited references 41

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Candace Currie, Michal Molcho, William Boyce … (2008)

Socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent health have been little studied until recently, partly due to the lack of appropriate and agreed upon measures for this age group. The difficulties of measuring adolescent socioeconomic status (SES) are both conceptual and methodological. Conceptually, it is unclear whether parental SES should be used as a proxy, and if so, which aspect of SES is most relevant. Methodologically, parental SES information is difficult to obtain from adolescents resulting in high levels of missing data. These issues led to the development of a new measure, the Family Affluence Scale (FAS), in the context of an international study on adolescent health, the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) Study. The paper reviews the evolution of the measure over the past 10 years and its utility in examining and explaining health related inequalities at national and cross-national levels in over 30 countries in Europe and North America. We present an overview of HBSC papers published to date that examine FAS-related socioeconomic inequalities in health and health behaviour, using data from the HBSC study. Findings suggest consistent inequalities in self-reported health, psychosomatic symptoms, physical activity and aspects of eating habits at both the individual and country level. FAS has recently been adopted, and in some cases adapted, by other research and policy related studies and this work is also reviewed. Finally, ongoing FAS validation work is described together with ideas for future development of the measure.

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Lluís Serra-Majem, Lourdes Ribas, Joy Ngo … (2004)

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Nutrients

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Nutrients

Journal ID (publisher-id): nutrients

Title: Nutrients

Publisher: MDPI

ISSN (Electronic): 2072-6643

Publication date (Electronic): 03 February 2021

Publication date Collection: February 2021

Volume: 13

Issue: 2

Electronic Location Identifier: 493

Affiliations

Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece; olgamalisova@ 123456yahoo.gr (O.M.); avlassopoulos@ 123456aua.gr (A.V.); kkandyliari@ 123456aua.gr (A.K.); evagelia93@ 123456hotmail.com (E.P.)

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[* ]Correspondence: kapsok@ 123456aua.gr ; Tel.: +30-210-5294708

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Antonis Vlassopoulos https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7136-1039

Aikaterini Kandyliari https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0883-7409

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Publisher ID: nutrients-13-00493

DOI: 10.3390/nu13020493

PMC ID: 7913215

PubMed ID: 33546128

SO-VID: bf917691-aa79-4325-bf68-bea3f6d9ef08

License:

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Dietary Intake and Lifestyle Habits of Children Aged 10–12 Years Enrolled in the School Lunch Program in Greece: A Cross Sectional Analysis

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Karger: Nutrition and Dietetics

Most cited references 41

Researching health inequalities in adolescents: the development of the Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) family affluence scale.

Predicting basal metabolic rate, new standards and review of previous work.

Food, youth and the Mediterranean diet in Spain. Development of KIDMED, Mediterranean Diet Quality Index in children and adolescents.

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