School Salad Bars: Placement Matters

Do you have picky eaters at home? Fruit and vegetable consumption is low among children and tends to decrease by one serving by the time kids reach their teen years. Thankfully, the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has been focused on encouraging young students to buy and eat more produce. Since 2010, the Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools campaign has raised over ten million dollars to assist school cafeterias in obtaining salad bar equipment. One recent study examined whether the location of the salad bar in the school cafeteria impacted fruit and vegetable consumption.

During the study, which involved 533 middle school students from six schools in Arizona, salad bars were either placed as part of the cafeteria serving line or outside of the line. Researchers then compared the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables that were served, consumed and wasted.

In the cafeterias featuring a salad bar as part of the lunch line, 98.6 percent of students served themselves fruits and/or vegetables from the salad bar and 90.6 percent of those students actually consumed the fruits and vegetables. On the other hand, at the schools with salad bars outside of the lunch line, only 22.6 percent of students served themselves fruits and/or vegetables and only 20.7 percent of those students actually consumed the fruits and vegetables.

Bottom Line: In this study, there was about a fivefold difference in the amount of salad bar items sold and consumed depending on the placement of the salad bar. The results suggest that allowing students to serve themselves prior to paying for their meal requires less effort, thus increasing the chance they will choose fruits and vegetables. Salad bars should be encouraged in school cafeterias and placed in a convenient location. If you are trying to get your child to eat more fruits and vegetables at home, try allowing your child to serve his/her own fruits and vegetables along with the rest of their meal and always have fruits and vegetables easily accessible as snacks. 

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