22-05-2025
School meals help fussy eaters try new foods, study finds
Having school meals could encourage picky teenagers to eat better, a study suggests.
When children who were picky eaters got to choose their own food at school lunchtimes they ate a wider variety of food compared with those who had a packed lunch, researchers found.
The findings, published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, suggested that picky eaters at the age of 13 were more likely than less choosy children to avoid meat, fish and fruit in their packed lunches. But there was little evidence of picky eaters avoiding those foods in school dinners.
In the study, picky children were less likely to have meat or fish sandwiches in their packed lunches and instead have fillings such as Marmite, peanut butter or cheese
