Impact of Student Exposure to Comprehensive Changes to School Policy, School Meals and Cooking and Garden Programs: Results of the Three-Year School Lunch Initiative Evaluation Project

The School Lunch Initiative (SLI) is a public/private partnership among the Berkeley Unified School District, the Chez Panisse Foundation and the Center for Ecoliteracy. The objectives are to change the way children learn about food and change what they eat in school. This presentation reports the results of the SLI Evaluation Project, a three-year longitudinal study examining changes in student food knowledge, attitude and behavior and academic performance related to their exposure to cooking and gardening classes and extensive changes to the school meal program. A cohort of 327 was recruited from a pool of 414 fourth and fifth graders in 4 elementary schools, and followed into middle school; 82% of students were retained in the second year of the study. Preliminary analysis shows that students attending schools with extensive development of the SLI program (‘higher developed schools') scored higher on nutrition knowledge questions, and had a higher preference for fruits and vegetables than students at study schools in earlier stages of SLI development (‘less developed schools'). In addition, they also increased their intake of fruit and vegetables by 0.5 servings over the first year of the evaluation study in comparison to students at the less developed schools who decreased their intake of fruit and vegetables by 0.5 servings. Fruit and vegetable intake (5 servings or more) was associated with higher test scores in science and math, but not English language arts, in the second year of the study after adjusting for race, school, mother's education and grade.