Point-of-sale machines in school cafeterias and parental influence on child food choices

The prevalence of obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Twenty-five percent of school aged students are overweight. Schools have the opportunity to help slow this epidemic. School cafeterias in the United States feed millions of students every day through the National School Lunch Program.^ Point-of-sale machines are used in most school cafeterias to help streamline the process of purchasing school lunches. The point-of-sale software allows school personnel to place special notes on student's accounts to provide alerts about parental requests. This study investigated what the alerts are used for, who uses the alerts, and if there are any patterns by demographic characteristics. ^ Counts and percentages were used to determine what the alerts were used for and who used them. This study found that students who were white non-Hispanic, paid status, or in elementary school were most likely to have alerts placed on their accounts. Also, the majority of point-of-sale alerts were used as allowances (i.e., allowed to purchase snacks from the balance on the school lunch account), rather than restrictions (i.e., restricted from purchasing high calorie foods or specific food items). Using chi-square analysis, a total of 688 alerts were analyzed. There were significant differences in alert frequencies for intent category by grade level (p=0.000), snack access (p=0.000), and gender (p=0.002). Therefore, the results are significant, and one can conclude there is a significant relationship between gender, grade level, and snack access, and the presence of an alert on the school lunch account.^ Also, school administrators may want to take into consideration possible changes to their program, such as requiring more time to run the software. The results of this study can assist school administrators to better understand that a point-of-sale alert program may help their school lunch programs run more efficiently, while also providing parental influence on students’ food choices at the point-of-sale.^ School food service authorities should consider implementing a structured point-of-sale alert policy to encourage parental input on their children's food choices. When implementing the point-of-sale policy, schools should publicize this policy online, through school lunch menus, and parent communications increase participation throughout the school district.^

A critical review: Why isn't "cold pasteurization" being used widespread as a method to prevent food-related illnesses as a result of the consumption of ready-to-eat, fresh fruits, and vegetables

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that foodborne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year. The American public is becoming more health conscious and there has been an increase in the dietary intake of fresh fruits and vegetables. Affluence and demand for convenience has allowed consumers to opt for pre-processed packaged fresh fruits and vegetables. These pre-processed foods are considered Ready-to-Eat. They have many of the advantages of fresh produce without the inconvenience of processing at home. After seeing a decline in food-related illnesses between 1996 and 2004, due to an improvement in meat and poultry safety, tainted produce has tilted the numbers back. This has resulted in none of the Healthy People 2010 targets for food-related illness reduction being reached. Irradiation has been shown to be effective in eliminating many of the foodborne pathogens. The application of irradiation as a food safety treatment has been widely endorsed by many of the major associations involved with food safety and public health. Despite these endorsements there has been very little use of this technology to date for reducing the disease burden associated with the consumption of these products. A review of the available literature since the passage of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act was conducted on the barriers to implementing irradiation as a food safety process for fresh fruits and vegetables. The impediments to adopting widespread utilization of irradiation food processing as a food safety measure involve a complex array of legislative, regulatory, industry, and consumer issues. The FDA’s approval process limits the expansion of the list of foods approved for the application of irradiation as a food safety process. There is also a lack of capacity within the industry to meet the needs of a geographically dispersed industry.^