Purpose: To compare the dietary quality among adolescents who skip lunch and those who do not and explore associations between school-level variables, demographic variables and lunch skipping.
Design: Cross-sectional.
Setting: Public schools in New Orleans, Louisiana (n = 21).
Participants: 718 adolescents.
Methods: Adolescents participated in a 24-hour dietary recall using the Automated Self-Administered 24-Hour (ASA24) Dietary Assessment Tool early in 2013. Data were converted into Healthy Eating Index (HEI-2010) scores. Mean scores were compared between students who skipped lunch and those who did not. A multilevel analysis was conducted to assess relationships between school environment, demographics, and lunch skipping.
Results: Of the 718 respondents, 88.3% were Black and 15.3% skipped lunch. Students who ate lunch had a mean HEI score of 46.6 compared to a mean score of 41.7 for students who skipped lunch (p < .001). Students who skipped lunch also had significantly lower intake of total vegetables (p = .02), whole fruits (p < .001), total dairy (p = .003), total protein (p < .001).
Conclusions: Skipping lunch was associated with lower quality diet, though diet quality was low among all students. Considering over 15% of the sample did not eat lunch in a closed-campus school setting, further research should consider how to encourage students to participate in the National School Lunch Program, which has the ability to increase diet quality in adolescents.
Keywords: ASA24; adolescents; dietary recalls; healthy eating index; people of color.