A study has found that many teenagers perceive school food to be unhealthy and leave school at lunchtimes to escape long queues and inadequate seating and social areas.
The research has been conducted by academics at the University of Hertfordshire and involved more than 600 young people aged 13 to 15 from seven schools with various levels of deprivation. Headteachers, kitchen supervisors and other staff were also interviewed.
The study examined the reasons for poor take-up of school meals and the lure of food outlets within walking distance of secondary schools.
It found that socio-economic boundaries affect where school children choose to buy their lunch from, with poorer children preferring to frequent fast food outlets and supermarkets rather than eating on-site at school.
The study suggests that young people who attend schools in poorer areas prefer to shop in outlets where they liked the staff, received friendly service and value for money. The retail staff at these outlets report having good relationships with the local school children, many of whom knew their families as well.
Young people reported visiting the same shops and takeaways with their families in the evening or at weekends, thereby helping to develop on-going relationships with local businesses in ways that schools cannot match.
Although school meals ought to meet school food standard requirements many of the teenagers in the study perceived the food to be unhealthy and shunned school meals due to long queues, and inadequate seating and social areas within the schools.
It concludes that young people are more likely to eat within the school environment if the school cafeteria is seen as a space to socialise in and they are consulted over the menu.
The relationship between school staff and pupils also affected young people’s food choices – in areas of lower socio-economic status pupils described wanting to escape the school environment at lunchtime while some headteachers expressed exasperation at trying to police, or change, what food pupils selected.
Elsewhere, in areas of mixed socio-economic status young people struggled to afford to buy food. Some working parents were not eligible for free school meals, children said, which meant some individuals felt excluded from buying food with their friends at lunchtime and, in some cases, young people were hungry but unable to buy enough food to last them through the day.
Lead researcher on the study, Professor Wendy Wills, said: “Children today are living through austerity and political arguments about hunger, food banks and families going without. Their experiences highlight what it’s like to live in a society where eating a nutritious and socially acceptable diet is not a universal right but a lottery depending on family background. Schools must do as much as they can to ensure that young people access good food at lunchtime.”
- The research has been published in the April issue of the journal Children and Society, as part of a special issue examining food poverty and inequality. The full paper – The Socio‐Economic Boundaries Shaping Young People’s Lunchtime Food Practices on a School Day – can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/2Hprop2