Loved or Left Untouched: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Food Waste and Consumption In the National School Lunch Program

Background: Children in the United States have low diet quality scores and consume less than the recommended amounts of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and dairy. The National School Lunch Program serves nearly 30 million children daily, and has the potential to improve the diet quality of children. However, there are high levels of food waste, particularly of fruits and vegetables. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine which menu items students are throwing away untouched most frequently. A secondary purpose of this study is to determine which menu items students are fully consuming most frequently. Methods: Student participants (n=2,881) in Arizona elementary, middle, and high schools who participated in school lunch were randomly selected to participate in the study. Student lunch trays were photographed before and after the student ate. Visual estimation was used to determine if menu items were untouched or fully consumed. Menu item names were standardized and categorized into menu categories. The frequency menu items were untouched or fully consumed were summarized in percentages by menu category, and stratified by school level. Results: Findings show that menu items within each menu category are untouched and fully consumed with different frequencies. Cold vegetable items were untouched with the greatest frequency, with 39% of all servings untouched. Some menu items were both untouched and fully consumed with high frequency. Conclusion: Food service managers can use these results to plan menus with food items that are more popular among their students to help increase consumption and decrease waste. Future research should explore the relationship between packaging and preparation with student consumption and waste. Researchers should also examine aspects of the high school food environment that may lead to increased student consumption.