Pizza lovers and savoury snackers: what secondary school pupils choose to eat |
Changes are on the horizon for the food that students can choose in English schools. The government is proposing updates to the school food standards, which set out what schools can serve. The changes are aimed at increasing fibre and reducing fat, sugar and salt in school food. These will, for example, remove deep fried foods and fruit juice from school menus, while also limiting how often options such as pizza can be offered.
Our new research examined what students chose in secondary school under the current school food standards, and highlights students’ established patterns of food choice.
In our study, we examined more than a quarter of a million choices made by over 800 11- to 18-year-olds in a secondary school. By looking at what they chose over one academic year, we developed a profile for each student – and were able to look at patterns of food choice. We found that students fell into one of five groups, which we named according to the foods and drinks that dominated.
The largest group was “sandwich combo fans”, with 40% of students, who tended to choose a combination of drinks, sandwiches and cookies or traybakes. The next group was “break time snackers”: 23% of students, who predominantly chose savoury snacks.
Selections by “traybake enthusiasts” were dominated by cookies and traybakes (19% of students), and those of “pizza lovers” by pizzas (17% of........