BALTIMORE — Probably not, suggests a new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study.
Researchers observed 274 children in kindergarten through second grade in 10 New York City public schools as they selected from the offerings during one lunch period when a chicken-and-vegetable entrée was on the menu. They watched to see whether each of the six-through-eight-year-olds chose a fruit, vegetable, whole grain, low-fat milk and/or a lean protein, taking before and after photos of the trays. They found that while 75 percent of the kids chose the lean protein (the entrée), only 58 percent chose a fruit and 59 percent chose a vegetable. And among those who put the various types of food on their trays, only 75 percent took even a single bite of the protein, while only 24 percent ate a bite of their vegetables.
"We have been thinking that if young children choose healthy food, they will eat it," says Susan M. Gross, PhD, MPH, a research associate in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "But our research shows that is not necessarily so."
Gross is scheduled to present the research at the American Public Health Association's Annual Meeting in New Orleans, La., on Nov. 17.
She says the environment in the cafeteria had a major impact on whether the children ate their lunches. Along with recording how much food the children selected and ate, the researchers also examined the noise level, supervision level, how full the cafeteria was, the length of the lunch period and the packaging of foods.
They found that children were much more likely to finish their