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 20 July 2008 18:29 BST

New style fruit tuck shops 'improve pupils' diets'

Tuesday, 13 May 2008 08:43
School pupils are more likely to eat fruit if there is a fruit tuck shop and a ban on unhealthy snacks

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Replacing the traditional tuck shop with one that sells only fruit and limiting what food children can bring into school can increase how much fruit pupils eat, a new study says.

Researchers at Cardiff University found that children who attend schools that run fruit tuck shops are much more likely to eat more fruit if they and their friends are also banned from bringing unhealthy snacks on to the schools premises.

The study is the latest to suggest ways of improving the food school children eat, with research suggesting pupils with healthier diets are able to concentrate and perform better at school.

The researchers studied the snacking habits of nine- to 11-year-olds attending 43 primary schools in deprived areas of south Wales and south-west England which had a variety of policies on bringing food to school: no restrictions; fruit only; or no food at all.

They found that fruit tuck shops alone had a limited impact on children's fruit consumption at school.

And although children in schools with fruit tuck shops were more likely to say they and their friends ate fruit regularly, the amount of fruit they reported eating the previous day was not significantly more than children at schools without fruit tuck shops.

But the study discovered that fruit tuck shops had a much greater impact in schools which also had a 'no food' or 'fruit only' policy for what they could bring into school.

Children who attended fruit tuck shop schools where fruit was the only food allowed to be brought in ate 0.37 more portions of fruit per day than those at schools without a fruit tuck shop, while children at schools which banned all types of food ate 0.14 more portions of fruit per day.

Schools that allowed children to bring in whatever food they wanted had lower fruit consumption, even if the school had a tuck shop.

"Our results suggest that children are more willing to use fruit tuck shops and eat fruit as a snack at school if they and their friends are not allowed to take in unhealthy snacks," said Professor Laurence Moore from the Cardiff Institute of Society, Health and Ethics.

"This highlights the importance of friends' behaviour and of peer modelling, and of the need for schools to put policies in place to back up health interventions."
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