Providing children with nutritious after-school snacks as part of an after-school enrichment program can promote healthy diets and improve food security of at-risk children. However, in 2010 only 27% ...of schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) also offered the after-school snack component of the program, making it available to only a minority of American schoolchildren. We investigate school and district-level characteristics associated with the likelihood of a school offering the program. Schools more likely to offer the program serve mainly low-income students and are located in urban, high-poverty districts. Elementary schools are the most likely to offer the program and high schools the least likely. Further investigation of the factors influencing availability of after-school snacks would assist child nutrition program staff, policymakers, and child nutrition advocates to assess needs and target efforts to encourage schools to offer NSLP snacks.
El objetivo de este trabajo fue desarrollar tres alimentos a base de mezclas de trigo y leguminosas, fermentadas y sin fermentar, a los fines de contribuir con una oferta saludable para las meriendas ...escolares. Para ello se sustituyó parcialmente la harina refinada de trigo por harinas integrales de leguminosas, en la elaboración de ponqués, brownies y galletas, alimentos tradicionalmente consumidos por los niños en edad escolar. Se formularon ponqués sustituyendo 20% de la harina de trigo por Phaseolus vulgaris, brownies con sustituciones de 30% de Cajanus cajan y galletas con 30% de Vigna sinensis, utilizando en los tres productos las leguminosas tanto fermentadas como no fermentadas. Al evaluar sensorialmente estos productos mediante un test de grado de aceptación y usando una escala hedónica de 7 puntos, se encontraron para todos los productos valores superiores a cinco en los atributos, sabor, color y apreciación global. Adicionalmente, se midió la preferencia con un grupo de 90 escolares, corroborándose los resultados obtenidos a nivel de laboratorio. La caracterización química indicó contenidos de proteínas entre 12 y 13% para el ponqué, 10 y 11% para los brownies y 10% para las galletas y digestibilidades proteicas in vitro de 91%, 87% y 93%, respectivamente. El aporte calórico, calculado por ración fue de 199 kcal, 246 kcal y 237 kcal, para ponqués, brownies y galletas, respectivamente. Se concluyó que es técnicamente posible incorporar Phaseolus vulgaris, Vigna sinensis y Cajanus cajan, fermentadas y no fermentadas, a productos de alto consumo como ponqués, brownies y galletas de mayor contenido nutricional y bien aceptados por niños escolares.The objective of this work was to develop three foodstuffs based on mixes of wheat and fermented and non-fermented legumes, for the purpose of contributing with a healthy alternative for school snacks. To this aim, refined wheat flour was partially substituted with whole legume flours for the preparation of cakes, brownies and cookies, foodstuffs traditionally consumed by school age children. Cakes were formulated substituting 20% of wheat flour with Phaseolus vulgaris flour, brownies with 30% of Cajanus cajan flour and cookies with 30% of Vigna sinensis flour, using fermented and non-fermented legumes in the three products. When these products were subjected to sensorial evaluation through a test of degree of acceptability and using a hedonic scale of 7 points, values higher than 5 in the attributes taste, color and overall appraisal were found for all the products. In addition, the preference was measured with a group of 90 school children, corroborating the results obtained at laboratory level. Chemical characterization showed protein contents between 12 and 13% for the cake, 10 and 11% for the brownies and 10% for the cookies and protein digestibilities in vitro of 91%, 87% and 93%, respectively. The calorie supply, calculated per portion was of 199 kcal, 246 kcal and 237 kcal, for cakes, brownies and cookies, respectively. It was concluded that it is technically possible to incorporate fermented and non-fermented Phaseolus vulgaris, Vigna sinensis and Cajanus cajan, to highly consumed products such as cakes, brownies and cookies with a higher nutritional content and well-accepted by school-age children.
School feeding programs are politically popular interventions. They are, nevertheless, difficult to assess in terms of effectiveness since their impact is partially on education and partially on ...school health. They are, additionally, a means to augment consumption by vulnerable populations. The authors look at recent evidence from in-depth studies and argue that while school feeding programs can influence the education of school children and, to a lesser degree, augment nutrition for families of beneficiaries, they are best viewed as transfer programs that can provide a social safety net and help promote human capital investments.
Policymakers and development organizations have embraced school feeding programs as a way to help poor children get enough to eat while giving them an incentive to be in school. The programs are not ...just used in developing countries the United States began implementing school feeding programs in the 19th century and still uses them today for poor children. The popularity of these programs, which in some countries include take-home rations for households whose children attend school, make it imperative that we answer basic questions about the effectiveness of these programs. Do they boost enrollment and if so, are take-home rations as good as offering in-school meals? A proper lunch can ward off hunger, but is it enough to make up for years of nutritional deprivation? Children who aren't hungry can focus better in school does this mean they will do better in their classes? The World Bank is committed to the United Nations Mil-lennium Goals and support research that can help countries devise policies to reach these goals, including gender equality, child health and a primary school education for every child. As part of this, they support evaluations of programs designed to encourage children to enroll in school while helping boost their daily nutritional intake.
This review highlights three main findings. First, school feeding programs in low-income countries exhibit large variation in cost, with concomitant opportunities for cost containment. Second, as ...countries get richer, school feeding costs become a much smaller proportion of the investment in education. For example, in Zambia the cost of school feeding is about 50 percent of annual per capita costs for primary education; in Ireland it is only 10 percent. Further analysis is required to define these relationships, but supporting countries to maintain an investment in school feeding through this transition may emerge as a key role for development partners. Third, the main preconditions for the transition to sustainable national programs are mainstreaming school feeding in national policies and plans, especially education sector plans; identifying national sources of financing; and expanding national implementation capacity. Mainstreaming a development policy for school feeding into national education sector plans offers the added advantage of aligning support for school feeding with the processes already established to harmonize development partner support for the education for all-fast track initiative.
