A new research protocol developed by a UCLA team led by William McCarthy, a professor in the department of health policy and management at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, is being recommended by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for use by other researchers.
McCarthy and his research team designed the Los Angeles County Plate Waste Assessment to study student receptivity to new lunch menu offerings of fruits and vegetables that were implemented in 2011 in L.A. schools and early care education settings. The researchers measured fruit and vegetable waste among middle school students at four different schools in the L.A. Unified School District. Waste was divided into two categories — production waste, which is food prepared and left over after service, and plate waste, food that was selected, but not eaten by students — in order to better understand students’ preferences.
The assessment found a substantial amount of fruit and vegetable waste: 10.2 percent of fruit and 28.7 percent of vegetable items prepared at the four schools were left over after service. The students’ plate waste suggested that many of them did not select fruit or vegetable items and among those who did, many threw the items away without ever tasting them. The findings suggest that additional work needs to be done to encourage student receptivity to these healthier items in the school menu, such as increasing the appeal of fruit and vegetable items.
The assessment has been recognized by the California Department of Public Health Research Surveillance and Evaluation Branch as well as by the CDC's Division of Community Health as the most appropriate evaluation method of nutrition interventions in school and early care education settings.
Read the full announcement at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
