TY - JOUR
T1 - Prevalence and Implementation Practices of School Salad Bars Across Grade Levels
AU - Bruening, Meredith
AU - Adams, Marc
AU - Ohri-Vachaspati, Punam
AU - Hurley, Jane
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was funded by the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust ZBS-0019.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, The Author(s) 2017.
PY - 2018/7/1
Y1 - 2018/7/1
N2 - Purpose: To assess the prevalence of school salad bars in Arizona and to describe common practices of salad bar use among school nutrition managers across grade level. Design: Cross-sectional web-based surveys. Participants: School nutrition managers from elementary, middle, high, and K-12 schools (N = 648). Measures: Prevalence of salad bars; implementation practices such as years with salad bar, salad bar type, location, monitor, and reimbursement practices; and food-related components of salad bars including frequency of items, popular items, and sources of food. Analysis: Descriptive analyses were conducted including Fisher exact test, analysis of variance, and the Kruskal-Wallis test comparing practices across grade level (elementary, middle, high, and K-12 schools). Results: Overall, 61.1% of respondents had a salad bar; there were significant differences in the prevalence across grade level: elementary, middle, high, and K-12 schools had prevalence of 67.3%, 75.0%, 45.5%, and 51.1%, respectively (P <.001). We observed significant differences in the implementation and food-related components of salad bars across grade levels including type, salad bar location, sources of food, and frequency of serving cut vegetables. Conclusion: This study provides insights on the prevalence of salad bars and is the first to report on implementation practices of school salad bars. These results may also guide the development of interventions for nutrition educators to use for the promotion fruit and vegetable consumption via school salad bars.
AB - Purpose: To assess the prevalence of school salad bars in Arizona and to describe common practices of salad bar use among school nutrition managers across grade level. Design: Cross-sectional web-based surveys. Participants: School nutrition managers from elementary, middle, high, and K-12 schools (N = 648). Measures: Prevalence of salad bars; implementation practices such as years with salad bar, salad bar type, location, monitor, and reimbursement practices; and food-related components of salad bars including frequency of items, popular items, and sources of food. Analysis: Descriptive analyses were conducted including Fisher exact test, analysis of variance, and the Kruskal-Wallis test comparing practices across grade level (elementary, middle, high, and K-12 schools). Results: Overall, 61.1% of respondents had a salad bar; there were significant differences in the prevalence across grade level: elementary, middle, high, and K-12 schools had prevalence of 67.3%, 75.0%, 45.5%, and 51.1%, respectively (P <.001). We observed significant differences in the implementation and food-related components of salad bars across grade levels including type, salad bar location, sources of food, and frequency of serving cut vegetables. Conclusion: This study provides insights on the prevalence of salad bars and is the first to report on implementation practices of school salad bars. These results may also guide the development of interventions for nutrition educators to use for the promotion fruit and vegetable consumption via school salad bars.
KW - children
KW - fruits and vegetables
KW - salad bars
KW - school nutrition
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U2 - 10.1177/0890117116689159
DO - 10.1177/0890117116689159
M3 - Article
C2 - 29214812
AN - SCOPUS:85041558038
SN - 0890-1171
VL - 32
SP - 1375
EP - 1382
JO - American Journal of Health Promotion
JF - American Journal of Health Promotion
IS - 6
ER -