Nutritional comparison of packed and school lunches in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children following the implementation of the 2012-2013 National School Lunch Program standards.

Objective: Approximately 40% of children bring a packed lunch to school. Little is known about the quality of these lunches. This study examined the nutritional quality of packed lunches compared with school lunches for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children after the implementation of 2012-2013 National School Lunch Program standards.

Methods: The researchers collected observational data for packed and school lunches from 3 schools in rural Virginia for 5 consecutive school days and analyzed them for macro and micro nutrients.

Results: Of the 1,314 observations collected; 42.8% were packed lunches (n = 562) and 57.2% were school lunches (n = 752). Energy, fat, saturated fat, sugar, vitamin C, and iron were significantly higher whereas protein, sodium, fiber, vitamin A, and calcium were significantly lower for packed lunches than school lunches.

Conclusions: Packed lunches were of less nutritional quality than school lunches. Additional research is needed to explore factors related to choosing packed over school lunches.