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Providing School Meals to All Students Free of Charge during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Challenges and Benefits Reported by School Foodservice Professionals in California
Universal school meals (USM) have the potential to increase access to healthy food for millions of U.S. students. This study evaluated school food authorities’ (SFA) perspectives of federal USM in response to COVID-19 (school year (SY) 2021–22) and California’s upcoming USM policy in the SY 2022–23....
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9500887/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36145229 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14183855 |
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author | Zuercher, Monica D. Cohen, Juliana F. W. Hecht, Christina E. Hecht, Kenneth Ritchie, Lorrene D. Gosliner, Wendi |
author_facet | Zuercher, Monica D. Cohen, Juliana F. W. Hecht, Christina E. Hecht, Kenneth Ritchie, Lorrene D. Gosliner, Wendi |
author_sort | Zuercher, Monica D. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Universal school meals (USM) have the potential to increase access to healthy food for millions of U.S. students. This study evaluated school food authorities’ (SFA) perspectives of federal USM in response to COVID-19 (school year (SY) 2021–22) and California’s upcoming USM policy in the SY 2022–23. In February 2022, all SFAs in California (n = 1116) were invited to complete an online survey. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression examining differences by school demographic characteristics were used. Five hundred and eighty-one SFAs completed the survey; 63% of them first implemented USM during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reported benefits included increased student meal participation (79.2%) and reduced stigma (39.7%). Top challenges included staffing (76.9%) and meal packaging/solid waste (67.4%). Nearly all SFAs reported pandemic-related challenges procuring the necessary types (88.9%) and amounts of foods (85.9%), and non-food supplies/equipment (82.6%). Over 40% reported that federal reimbursements were insufficient to cover costs. SFAs with <40% FRPM-eligible students and/or higher student enrollment reported more current challenges and future concerns than those with ≥40% FRPMs and lower student enrollment. The top resources requested to implement CA’s USM included additional facilities/equipment (83.8%), communications/marketing (76.1%), increasing meal participation (71.5%), and financial management (61.5%). Most California SFAs reported that implementing federal USM had the intended effect of feeding more children. This study’s findings may be useful to the several other U.S. states implementing universal school meals in the SY 2022–23, and to other states or countries considering adopting a USM policy in the future. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9500887 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-95008872022-09-24 Providing School Meals to All Students Free of Charge during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Challenges and Benefits Reported by School Foodservice Professionals in California Zuercher, Monica D. Cohen, Juliana F. W. Hecht, Christina E. Hecht, Kenneth Ritchie, Lorrene D. Gosliner, Wendi Nutrients Article Universal school meals (USM) have the potential to increase access to healthy food for millions of U.S. students. This study evaluated school food authorities’ (SFA) perspectives of federal USM in response to COVID-19 (school year (SY) 2021–22) and California’s upcoming USM policy in the SY 2022–23. In February 2022, all SFAs in California (n = 1116) were invited to complete an online survey. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression examining differences by school demographic characteristics were used. Five hundred and eighty-one SFAs completed the survey; 63% of them first implemented USM during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reported benefits included increased student meal participation (79.2%) and reduced stigma (39.7%). Top challenges included staffing (76.9%) and meal packaging/solid waste (67.4%). Nearly all SFAs reported pandemic-related challenges procuring the necessary types (88.9%) and amounts of foods (85.9%), and non-food supplies/equipment (82.6%). Over 40% reported that federal reimbursements were insufficient to cover costs. SFAs with <40% FRPM-eligible students and/or higher student enrollment reported more current challenges and future concerns than those with ≥40% FRPMs and lower student enrollment. The top resources requested to implement CA’s USM included additional facilities/equipment (83.8%), communications/marketing (76.1%), increasing meal participation (71.5%), and financial management (61.5%). Most California SFAs reported that implementing federal USM had the intended effect of feeding more children. This study’s findings may be useful to the several other U.S. states implementing universal school meals in the SY 2022–23, and to other states or countries considering adopting a USM policy in the future. MDPI 2022-09-17 /pmc/articles/PMC9500887/ /pubmed/36145229 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14183855 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Zuercher, Monica D. Cohen, Juliana F. W. Hecht, Christina E. Hecht, Kenneth Ritchie, Lorrene D. Gosliner, Wendi Providing School Meals to All Students Free of Charge during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Challenges and Benefits Reported by School Foodservice Professionals in California |
title | Providing School Meals to All Students Free of Charge during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Challenges and Benefits Reported by School Foodservice Professionals in California |
title_full | Providing School Meals to All Students Free of Charge during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Challenges and Benefits Reported by School Foodservice Professionals in California |
title_fullStr | Providing School Meals to All Students Free of Charge during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Challenges and Benefits Reported by School Foodservice Professionals in California |
title_full_unstemmed | Providing School Meals to All Students Free of Charge during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Challenges and Benefits Reported by School Foodservice Professionals in California |
title_short | Providing School Meals to All Students Free of Charge during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Challenges and Benefits Reported by School Foodservice Professionals in California |
title_sort | providing school meals to all students free of charge during the covid-19 pandemic and beyond: challenges and benefits reported by school foodservice professionals in california |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9500887/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36145229 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu14183855 |
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