Summary
Proper and healthy eating in school age children is of fundamental importance because it assists in the growth, development, learning and school performance. School meals should meet the nutritional needs of school children and their food preferences. The objective of this study was to evaluate the adhesion and acceptability of school meals menus in a rural municipality, specifically that of Barão do Triunfo, RS, Brazil, using a cross-sectional study in public schools with 240 students from preschool to eighth grade. A facial and verbal hedonic scale was applied to evaluate the adhesion rates and student acceptability in relation to the school meals menus. The frequency of voting using the hedonic scale showed that 56.32% of the students liked the school meals a lot and 22.42% liked them moderately. The average adhesion to the school menus was 86.44% (SD ± 9.02) and student acceptance in relation to the menus was 90.64% (SD ± 8.79). It was observed that when comparing the menus, the snacks had significantly higher means on the adhesion index and acceptability in relation to the meals. The adhesion and the acceptability rates were shown to be suitable for rural schools, but food and nutrition education activities must be implemented to give value to the food served at school.
Keywords:
School feeding; Menu; Public policy; Consumer behaviour
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