Students who regularly eat lunch provided by their schools are more likely to be overweight and have higher levels of cholesterol than those who eat meals brought from home, a Michigan study found.
The survey of middle-schoolers found that 39 percent of those who always or almost always had cafeteria meals were overweight or obese, compared with 24 percent of those bringing food from home. The researchers, from the University of Michigan Health Systems in Ann Arbor, presented the findings Saturday at a meeting of heart specialists in Atlanta.
The researchers didn’t specify that school lunches caused the 11- and 12-year-olds to be overweight, and the surveys found added evidence of unhealthy diets and lack of exercise in the same group that regularly went through the lunch line.
Still, only 6 percent of school-supplied meals met the nutritional requirements set by the U.S. Agriculture Department, the researchers said, citing previously published data. About 31 million students in the U.S. have a school-supplied meal each day, according to the researchers.
“We need to partner with schools to help kids in a prevention way, so we don’t have to wait until they’re patients in the cardiologist’s office as adults,” said Elizabeth Jackson, assistant professor of medicine at the health systems and one of the authors, in a phone interview.
