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Nutrient analysis of school lunches and anthropometric measures in a private and public school in Chennai, India

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Abstract

School lunch programs have been implemented as a method to facilitate better learning environments for children. These programs bring together the importance of adequate nutrition for academic performance, growth and development. This study served to assess the impact of the School Lunch Program in India and observe measures related to nutrition adequacy and stunting in school aged children in Chennai, India. Dietary and anthropometric data were collected among students of ages 7 to 10 in a privately funded (n = 64) and a publicly funded school (n = 28). Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis was assessed for private school students. BMI for Age Z-scores for the private school (0.05 ± 1.36) (mean ± standard deviation) and public school (− 0.91 ± 2.01) were significantly different (p = 0.008). Additionally, 32% of public school students exhibited mild stunting, classified as Z-scores less than − 1. Total calories consumed during the private school lunch was 269 ± 112 and 463 ± 234 for the publically funded school. Analysis of nutritional parameters of meals suggest that adequacy was otherwise fair during this singular analysis but does not provide evidence to correlate body composition and long term implications of malnutrition with this study population. Additional longitudinal analysis is required to better assess these implications.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Alejandra Calderon and Hannah Brzozowski from Central Washington University for their help with this project. Additionally, we would like to thank Ranjini Dilip Kumar and Soundarya R who both helped in the data collection and calculations for this study.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Sciences, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA, 98926, USA

    Ethan Bergman

  2. D.V. Living Science Enterprises Private Limited, India, Chennai, 600 004, India

    Dharini Krishnan

  3. College of the Sciences, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA, 98926, USA

    Timothy F. Englund

  4. School of Management & Enterprise, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, 4350, Australia

    Raj Gururajan

  5. School of Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 94306, USA

    Heather Gerrish

Authors
  1. Ethan Bergman
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  2. Dharini Krishnan
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  3. Timothy F. Englund
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  4. Raj Gururajan
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  5. Heather Gerrish
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ethan Bergman or Heather Gerrish.

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Bergman, E., Krishnan, D., Englund, T.F. et al. Nutrient analysis of school lunches and anthropometric measures in a private and public school in Chennai, India. Health Inf Sci Syst 8, 11 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13755-020-0101-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13755-020-0101-5

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