School districts with high free and reduced lunch eligibility offer less healthy food and drink choices

This abstract utilizes data from 2006 Utah School Health Profiles Principal Questionnaire, a state wide survey of middle and high school principals sponsored by the State Office of Education and Health Department with a response rate of 82% (n=209). A summary score was created from responses to the healthy snack and vending offerings (n=6) available to students and include low fat salty snacks, low fat cookies/cakes, 100% fruit juice, fruits and vegetables, bottled water and low fat milk. School demographic variables included free and reduced lunch enrollment and geographic location. After adjusting for race, schools with the highest percent of free/reduced lunch enrollment had fewer healthy snack and vending choices (mean=3.7) than medium (mean=4.3) and low (mean=4.7) (F=6.77, p<.01). Those schools with the lowest percentage of free/reduced lunch participation were 5.3 (CI=1.8-15.4) times more likely to have at least four of the six healthy offerings than schools with the highest percentage. Schools with a medium percentage of free/reduced lunch were 2.9 (CI=1.1-7.8) times more likely. When looking at location, schools in rural settings had fewer healthy choices (mean=3.8) than schools in suburban (mean=4.5) and urban (mean=4.6) settings (F=4.28, p<.01). Urban schools were 3.0 (CI=1.3-7.1) times more likely to have four or more healthy offerings than rural schools. Schools in suburban settings were also 3.0 (CI=1.3-7.2) times as likely to have at least four healthy choices as schools in rural settings. At risk schools were most likely to offer bottled water (92%) and least likely to offer low fat milk (8%).