Государственное Бюджетное Образовательное Учреждение города Москвы
лицей № 1535
ПРОЕКТНАЯ РАБОТА
(на английском языке)
Analysis of the school food supply from the viewpoint of nutritional and
dietary value.
(Анализ школьного питания с точки зрения диетической ценности)
Москва, 2015
Contents
Introduction ...................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1. Theoretical input.............................................................. 2
School as a habitat............................................................................. 2
Nutrition as an integral part of a school habitat ................................ 3
Nutrition plans in other countries .................................................... 4
Chapter 2. Practical Experiment ...................................................... 6
Objectives ......................................................................................... 6
Experiment procedure ...................................................................... 6
Results ............................................................................................... 8
Conclusions ...................................................................................... 8
Reference........................................................................................... 10
Appendix .......................................................................................... 11
Introduction
Since the time when human beings have evolved enough to change the
external natural conditions in correspondence to their need, they have been
creating their own man-made habitats with unique and specific compounds. Our
houses, office buildings, shopping centres and any other enclosed space can be
referred to as habitats at least temporary. Schools are no exception.
In any developed society schools play an extremely important socializing
and developing roles. A child usually spends at school from five to seven hours on
average and even more. The same is true for the teachers who do not spend there
less time and, as a rule, tend to be there for even longer periods. Thus, for almost
half a day five-six days a week a school building plays a role of a habitat for both
young growing organisms of pupils and already developed organisms of
educational stuff.
As any habitat school has to meet the needs of its temporary “habitants”.
One of the most crucial physical demands of any living creature being the need of
nutrition, at school students should have the opportunity to eat in order to restore
their energy level. Usually schools have canteens that provide students with food.
All over the world the system of nutrition is different, though each has its own
basis and regulations.
To our mind the aspect under analysis, i.e. nutrition at school, is always very
acute and topical. It is so especially for young children who need a very balanced
diet for appropriate physical growth and mental development as well. Therefore,
we have decided to devote our project to the study of the subject.
In the theoretical part of our project work we have tried to compare
approaches to nutrition in different countries with the one in Russia. The
experiment that has been conducted in course of the research is devoted to a more
thorough examination of the food system in a Russian school with the further
analysis of the results.
1
Chapter 1. Theoretical input
In the first chapter we will make an attempt to introduce the theoretical basis
for our practical research. To implement and assess correctly the results of the
experiment which is to be conducted in course of the current project work it is
essential to observe the following points:
-
a habitat and its functions, schools as a habitat;
-
nutrition in our life;
-
school dieting all over the world.
School as a habitat
First of all it seems extremely important to prove that school can be
considered a habitat. To do this we need to understand what a habitat is and which
types of habitats there are.
A habitat is a complex of biotic and abiotic conditions where an individual,
population or a kind of specie lives the majority of their life. In other words, it
includes all bodies and phenomena that directly or indirectly relate to an
individual. Habitat has an influence on state, development and reproduction of an
individual or a population.
A human lives in eternal interaction with a habitat during all its vital
functions to satisfy all its needs.
There are a few factors, which influence its lifestyle:
1) Abiotic environment (environmental factors) - a complex of inorganic
conditions, which has an influence on an organism (light, temperature, wind, air,
pressure, humidity, etc). For example, an accumulation of toxic substances or
chemical elements in the soil, parching of water during the drought, increase of
daylight hours, intensive ultraviolet radiation.
2) Biotic environment (environmental factors) - a complex of impacts of one
organism's vital functions on another organism (an impact of plants and animals on
other members of biogeocenosis). For instance, destruction of the soil by boars and
moles, decrease of number of squirrels in bad harvest year.
2
3) Anthropogenic factors - all forms of human activity that change nature as
a kind of living organisms' habitat or has direct influence on their lives. Scientists
separate anthropogenic factors from other forms of biotic environmental factors
because currently the fate of vegetation land of the Earth and all living species
depends on human activity.
4) Technogenic environment (techno sphere) - habitat which is made with
the help of human and technical means' impact on natural environment in order to
make the best conformity of the habitat to social and economic demands.
School as a habitat is a kind of technogenic environment, because the
conditions maintained in the school environment for the best studying atmosphere
are made with the help of human and of course, it has its impact on natural
environment.
Nutrition as an integral part of a school habitat
As it has already been stated in the precious section a habitat includes
several factors that have a great impact on the living-beings that are residents of
this or that habitat. On of such factors is food or nutrition.
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body.
It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as fats,
proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism and
assimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintain life, or stimulate
growth.
There are different ideas about what products a person should eat and how
many calories a day one should consume, but there is no doubt that food is an
essential part of life. Right nutrition is one of the most significant things that help
us maintain our health. Especially it is important for children and teenagers, whose
organisms are in the state of fast growing.
The Russian government has a formulary that regulates school catering in
Russia. Here are the main theses of these rules.
3
1) Daily diet should contain nutrients such as proteins, lipids, and
carbohydrates in relation 1:1:4 and percentage from calorific value 10-15%, 3032% and 55-60% resp. and calcium and phosphorus in relation 1:1,5.
2) Catering for students should be provided according to principles of
sparing nourishment, which is based on using special kinds of cooking such as
boiling, steaming, stewing, baking and excluding products causing any kind of
reaction.
3) Diet made of 2-6 meals per day must include meat, milk, butter and
vegetative oil, rye and oat bread (with every course). It is recommended to include
fish, eggs, cheese, cottage cheese and other dairy products once per 2-3 days.
4) Food products and food raw material reception in catering in schools and
other educational institutions should be implemented in presence of documents
confirming their quality and safety (for example, a certificate of quality and food
safety, documents of veterinary and sanitary examination, paper manufacturer,
delivery of food confirming their origin, certificate of conformity, declaration of
conformity) and membership of a particular batch of food according to the Russian
legislation. The documents confirming the quality and safety of the products and
lab research of agricultural products must be kept by the catering services of the
educational institution unless the usage of agricultural products is cancelled.
Food products, which do not have a mark stipulated by the Russian legislation,
must not be used.
While catering for schools companies that proved this service and devise the
menu should take into consideration the recommended daily set of food products
and their contents for students. Such recommendations for students at the age of
11-18 are presented in our paper in Table 1 (see Table 1 in Appendix).
Moreover, the authorities in Russia have also developed a document entitled
“An exemplary 24-day menu for the students of 1-4 grades and 5-11 grades”. This
document provides us with a list of dishes that correspond to the recommended
norms of daily food intake.
4
Nutrition plans in other countries
From the Stone Age to the Industrial Age, people have recognized the
healthful properties of certain foods. And now, in the Information Age, the
importance of nutrition is so well recognized and supported by scientific evidence
that virtually every major public health organization in the world makes dietary
recommendations. There is no unified internationally accepted approach to the
dieting plan for schools all over the world. Various approaches can have both
similarities and differences.
Below we observe food regulations for school catering in several countries
representing different parts of the world (the USA as a representative for America,
China – Asia, the UK – Europe).
The USA
The Government strictly regulates the diet: any school lunch is prepared in
accordance with the approved "Guidelines for nutrition for Americans", according
to which the dining portion should provide 1/3 of the daily needs of students in
protein, vitamins A, C, iron, calcium and calories. Regular menu is based on
research of nutritionists, immunologists, allergists. It mainly consist of whole
grains, fruits and vegetables, a moderate amount of meat, fish, legumes. The main
drink is milk with vitamins. Parents are able to influence on menu in a particular
school. The Americans have a national program of school lunches that provide
everything to schools.
China
The Quality of food is controlled by the Department of Nutrition and Food
Hygiene. Parents pay for food fixed price, which is set by school. Schools have
similar menu: cereals with various fillings like fruit, vegetables, besides the egg
and yogurt, boiled rice, vegetables, meat, fruit, sometimes soup or porridge on the
water. According to current national standards for student nutrition, lunch provides
40% of the students’ daily nutrients.
5
The UK
The Quality of food is controlled by the parliamentary of science and
technology. Government advice for a balanced childhood diet includes at least five
portions of fruit and vegetables a day, at least 50% of energy from food from
carbohydrate, no more than 35% of energy from food to come from fat, not more
than 11% of food energy from added sugars, a maximum daily salt intake 6 g.
***
So, the question can arise: what is the perfect daily nutrition for children?
The opinions are different. For example, one nutritional therapist at
NutriCentre said that “looking at the lunches from across the world, it seems mixed
in terms of how balanced the diets are. Looks can be deceiving, since while the
Finnish lunch, for example, looks very healthy - the focus is on starchy
carbohydrates, starchy vegetables and fruit. So it's lacking in adequate protein or
green leafy vegetables”.
This question has no definite answer, because the food an individual should
eat depends on many factors, like age, weight, height, nationality and many others.
There are many opinions on this subject. Nevertheless, in Russia the suggested
approach to the nutrition organization at school seems to take into consideration all
these factors.
Chapter 2. Practical Experiment
The second chapter of our project paper is dedicated to the description of the
practical experiment that aimed to assess the quality of food in an average Russian
secondary school.
Objectives
It has been stated in the theoretical input that there is no common universal
international approach to the way student should be fed at school. We, being
students of a Russian school with a typical catering serves, were extremely
interested in the subjected and wanted to learn more about the food we are offered.
6
In order to do this we have conducted an experiment. The following basic purposes
of the practical research may be singled out:
1) to analyze the contents of the food in a school canteen;
2) to compare the nutrition of the school canteen food to the norms of nutrition
contents and daily calories intake.
3) to find out and demonstrate if the students that attend our lyceum get the right
amount and quality of food during their school day which is 6-8 hours long.
Materials and methods
For the experiment we needed the following materials:
- kitchen scales,
- a camera and a notebook for records,
- canteen food.
The procedure of the experiment was as follows:
1) Every day for a week we went to the school canteen twice a week during
breakfast and lunch breaks.
2) We took the food that was offered to students and assessed according to the
following criteria:
- contents (what the compounds of the dish were)
- weight of each of the compounds (we weighed it with the help of the scales).
3) Then using our notes and descriptions we calculated the amount of the
macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins and lipids/fats) in each dish.
4) We also estimated the amount of calories in each dish.
5) Then having collected all the data we compared our results to the norms
published in the official regulations.
6) We also compared the set-menu and the optional menu offered in the canteen.
7) We analyzed the results and formulated several conclusions.
7
Results
In course of our practical research we managed to make all the necessary
measurements, i.e. we weighed the offered meals at lunch and breakfast in the
school canteen during one school week (from Monday to Sunday). The
corresponding results are present in Table 2 in the column “Weight” (see Table 2
in Appendix).
After that having analyzed the components of each meals and using the
information about the energetic value of different food produce, we estimated the
energetic value of each meal, i.e. the amount of calories was calculated. The
obtained data are demonstrated in Table 2 in the column “Energetic value” (see
Table 2 Appendix).
We examined the dishes from the set menu and the dishes that students can
choose.
Then we compared our results to the recommended norms and drew some
conclusions.
Conclusions
The conclusion that we formulated on the basis of our theoretical and
practical research in the field of school nutrition can be summarized in the
following way:
1) The first important conclusion we came to is that the range of dishes in our
canteen corresponds to the exemplary dietary plan.
2) Therefore, the energetic value and correspondingly the amount of calories that
students consume is sufficient.
3) Moreover, the nutrients intake of the students at our school also is within the
borders of the norms that are pointed out in the rules enacted by the Russian
government.
Thus, summing up, our school canteen provides teenagers with food that
contains all the necessary nutrients and necessary energetic value according to the
ideal daily diet for the healthy growth of young organisms.
8
Yet, we have noticed one drawback in the system of catering in our school.
While breakfast is the same for all of our students, there exist two possible options
of dining at school: one group of students gets the set menu and the rest have an
optional variant of lunch, i.e. they can choose any dishes they like. While
conduction our experiment we also considered this aspect and compared the dishes
in both variants of lunch. Having done this we would like to underline the
following aspects:
1) It turned out that those students who cannot choose have lunches that practically
in all cases meet the regulations of the exemplary many and norm of the daily
food intake, their ration at school is balanced in terms of nutritional and
energetic values.
2) As for the students who are free to choose the matter is more complicated.
Theoretically, through all the week, the canteen provides the dishes that can
meet the nutritional needs of students in calories and micro- and macronutrients,
but the problem is to choose them correctly. For example, if a student eats the
same dish every day, it is obvious that he or she will lack certain elements
containing in other products.
Unfortunately, it is usually quite difficult to name teenagers healthconscious people who care about what they eat. Still something should and, we
strongly believe, can be done about this. Probably, students should be given talks
on the importance of a balanced diet so that to encourage them to consider the
produce they consume. One more suggestion is to introduce students to the
exemplary balanced meal plan and device a certain chart for students where they
could mark the dishes they have already eaten so that to follow the appropriate
proportions of food.
No doubt, there always are aspects that can be improved in any sphere of
life. Still, we are glad to say that school as a habitat is safe and beneficial for
students in terms of feeding.
9
References
1) A habitat (article) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat
2) Dietary Guidelines for Americans, United States Department for Agriculture
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/DietaryGuidelines
3) Dietary Guidelines http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/
4) Food (article) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food
5) Healthy diet, World Health Organisation, Fact sheet N°394
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs394/en/
6) R.Long School meals and nutritional standards, House of Commons Library
October 29, 2015
http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04195#fu
llreport
7) School Food Standards http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/standards/
8) V. Anasya Steak with carrots, baked plantain and stuffed grape leaves with
salad: What school lunches look like around the world (and the UK and US are
the most unhealthy), Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-2957301/What-school-luncheslook-like-world.html#ixzz3rur7Kgfb
9) W. C. Wang, A. Worsley Healthy eating norms and food consumption,
European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 68, 592-601 (May 2014)
http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v68/n5/full/ejcn20142a.html
10) Примерное 24-х дневное меню для обучающихся 1-4 классов и 5-11
классов в общеобразовательных учреждениях в период 2013-2015 гг.
города Москвы http://liceum1535.ru/about/canteen/menu_2013_15.pdf
11) Санитарно-эпидемиологические требования к организации питания
обучающихся в общеобразовательных учреждениях, учреждениях
начального и среднего профессионального образования Санитарноэпидемиологическиеправила и нормативы СанПиН 2.4.5.2409-08, Москва
2008 http://www.standartov.ru/norma_doc/53/53610/index.htm
10
APPENDIX
Table 1.
Recommended daily set of food products and their contents for students at the
Name of the product
Rye bread
Size of the daily portion
g/ml (gross)
g/ml (net)
120
120
age of 11-18.
11
Wheat bread
Wheat flour
Grains (crops)
Pasta
Potatoes
Fresh vegetables (greens)
Fresh fruit
Dehydrated fruit
Fruit or vegetable
juice/vitaminized drinks
Bone-in meat
Chicken (eviscerated)
Fish fillet
Sausages
Milk (2,5%-3,2% fat content)
Fermented milk (2,5%-3,2% fat
content)
Cottage cheese (<9% fat
content)
Cheese
Sour cream (<15% fat content)
Butter
Vegetable oil
Eggs
Sugar
Confections
Tea
Cocoa
Yeast
Salt
200
20
50
20
250
400
200
20
200
200
20
50
20
188
320
185
20
200
105
76
80
20
300
180
78
53
77
19,6
300
180
60
60
12
10
35
18
1 egg
45
15
4,4
1,2
2
7
11,8
10
35
18
40
45
15
0,4
1,2
1,2
7
Table 2.
The amount and nutritional value of the canteen ration for a school week.
Day
Monday
Meals
Name of the dishes
Weight, g
Breakfast
Lunch
Casserole with raisins
Pea soup
Meat chop
75
180
75
12
Energetic
value,
calories
157
126
195
Tuesday
Breakfast
Lunch
Wednesday
Breakfast
Lunch
Thursday
Breakfast
Lunch
Friday
Breakfast
Lunch
Mashed potatoes
Olivie’s salad
Plum compote
Cheesecake with jam
Shchi
Tomato and
cucumber salad
Meat chop
Macarons
Strawberry juice
Semolina porridge
Borsch
Caesar salad
Rice
Sausages
Carrot juice
Omelette
Chicken soup
Vinaigrette salad
Pelmeni
Pear compote
Cheese open
sandwich
Soup with meatballs
Crab sticks salad
Chicken
Mashed potatoes
Compote with dried
apricots
13
150
50
200
75
180
50
138
92
192
134
137
12
75
120
200
120
180
50
120
100
200
75
150
50
120
200
50
195
190
80
118
90
63
139
215
81
118
110
61
307
90
68
150
50
120
150
200
90
56
192
138
128