PURPOSE: School meal programs should be part of the educational process to promote good eating habits for students. The purpose of this study was to develop an evaluation scale for educational school meal programs and evaluate the achievement level of educational school meal programs using the developed scale. METHODS: The evaluation scale for educational school meal programs consisted of 23 items in eight categories and was developed using content validity ratio (CVR) analysis and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) by 15 related experts. The results of a survey on nutrition teachers or dietitians at 91 elementary, middle, and high schools in Gyeonggi province, South Korea were analyzed to evaluate the achievement levels of educational school meal programs. RESULTS: Overall, total average score was 45.7 out of 100, with significant differences among schools (p = 0.005). Elementary schools (51.9) showed a higher average score than middle (41.5) and high schools (37.1). The score for the category of regular nutrition and dietary education was the lowest (5.7 out of 33.7). In addition, school meal environment (5 out of 10), educational activities through school meal time (9.2 out of 19), and extra-curricular experiential activities (3.5 out of 10) also showed inadequate levels. CONCLUSION: The results show that the overall level of educational school meal programs is not adequate and needs to be improved, especially at middle and high schools. Government support polices need to be implemented to encourage educational activities related to school meal programs.
Eating ; Education ; Gyeonggi-do* ; Humans ; Korea* ; Meals* ; Nutritionists