Enough time for lunch? The duration and governance of lunch eating times in Australian primary schools: A mixed-methods study

Abstract

Developing healthy eating behaviours is important to assist children in maintaining good health and decrease the risk of chronic health conditions. Recent nutrition promotion efforts in Australian primary schools have mainly focused on canteen guideline compliance and obesity prevention interventions. The aim of this study was to investigate the primary school food environment, specifically, allocated lunch eating duration and the governance of children's lunch breaks. Parents (n = 402) and teachers (n = 123) were asked via an online survey, about school allocated lunch eating duration and its adequacy. Respondents were asked about the supervision, monitoring and feedback of children's lunches, as well as how they felt about these practices. Parents (n = 308) and teachers (n = 102) also responded to the open-ended question "What could be done to improve the school food environment at your school?". Ten minutes was the allocated lunch eating duration reported by most parents and teachers and 58% of those parents and 30% of those teachers rated this as inadequate. Increasing the allocated lunch eating duration was frequently cited as a way to improve the school food environment. A similar proportion of parents and teachers agreed with teachers monitoring food intake, not providing feedback on food brought to school, and that parents should decide what children eat. More parents (44%) than teachers (23%) believed that teachers should eat their own lunch with the children. These findings provide an insight into the primary school lunch environment and the views of two key stakeholder groups. School food policies should consider these findings in future revisions, particularly with regards to eating times.

Keywords: Governance; Lunch eating time; Parents; Primary school; School food environment; Teachers.