B5-3 School meals, sustainability, health and social inequality - a school survey system for evaluating future implementation of school meals in Norway

A change in diet and reduced inequalities in diet might further with time effect more distal factors: health, sustainability and learning.

Background: Free school meals have the potential to improve diets, regarding both health and sustainability. A free school meal is a structural effort targeting the whole population, and it also might reduce social inequalities in diet. The current Norwegian government now wants to introduce a daily school meal. It is important that such initiatives are properly evaluated to estimate impact. In this presentation we will present how this can be done and we will discuss baseline results regarding adolescents’ diets and dietary inequalities.

Methods: In 2022 we collected baseline data among 7234 high school students in Oslo (participation rate 40%). The participants answered a short questionnaire with indicator questions for potential dietary impact of school meal programmes, such as meal frequency, intake of fruits and vegetables, meat (sustainability) and a question about what is important for them while choosing what to eat. A set of questions regarding social status was also included, such as perceived family economy (compared to others).

Results: The baseline data from Oslo indicate suboptimal eating. A total of 25% reported not to eat breakfast on any school day, 4% did not eat lunch at school during the school week, 28% ate fruit in school on most school days, 26% ate vegetables in school on most school days, and 35% ate meat in school on most school days. Only 25% reported that it was important that the food was sustainable. There was a clear social gradient in most of the measures. Regarding how the pupils perceived the family economics compared with others (better, as oth- ers, worse) the prevalence was 21%, 22% and 38% for not eating breakfast, 3%, 3% and 10% for not eating lunch, 31%, 28% and 21% for eating fruit, 31%, 26% and 19% for eating vegetables, and 44%, 35% and 26% for eating meat at school. Regarding the importance of sustainable foods there was no social gradient, 26%, 25% and 26%, respectively, for those reporting family economy to be better, as others and worse than others.
These results show that we have indicators for measuring the impact of the school meal pro- grammes that are planned to come. These indicators might improve due to implementation of school meals, both regarding absolute value and regarding social inequality.