If the menus of school canteens meet the nutritional requirements recommended for a healthy and balanced diet, the offer of products that are too fatty, too salty and too sweet pushes students to compose unbalanced meals, according to the results of a study by the association UFC Que Choisir.
The UFC Que Choisir association carefully studied 100 school canteen menus for a week to analyze their composition and dietary balance. At the heart of the diet of children and adolescents, these meals could be one of the keys to support them in eating healthily and maintaining a healthy weight. In France, 17% of children and 51% of adults are now obese or in overweight, this tendency increasing among children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
In 2013, the association observed that primary school menus were generally well rated, and that secondary school menus did not offer balanced meals defined by regulations. Indeed, the menus with choice, widely offered in establishments, favored a preference for the most caloric and cheapest foods, to the detriment of raw vegetables, fresh fruit, unminced red meat and fish, of better nutritional quality.
Menus that meet nutritional requirements
The study showed that the secondary canteens offered (1.3 times per week) unminced red meat (for a minimum required frequency of once a week) and that 69% of establishments offer raw vegetables all of the time. days of the week and 65% of fresh fruits daily.
Choices that promote an unbalanced diet
However, all the foods recommended for a healthy and balanced diet are offered with products of less nutritional interest with high levels of fat, salt or sugar, the consumption of which is recommended to be limited.
“Thus, in nearly one in three cases, the raw vegetables are offered as a choice with fatty starters4 such as snacks or cold meats. We can cite for example the Marie Curie high school in Tarbes (week of 2-6 October) or the Maupassant high school in Fécamp (week of 13-17 November) which, over the weeks studied, offered this type of caloric entry every day. . As for fresh fruit, almost half of the time on average they compete with sweet desserts such as cakes, donuts or ice cream, ”explains the study.
Their study reveals that “that the menus with choices offered in secondary schools guide students towards foods with the highest caloric values. On the basis of these results, the Association calls for the compulsory implementation of balanced choices in canteens ”.
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