School Meals and Food Poverty: Children’s Views, Parents’ Perspectives and the Role of School

This paper addresses the importance of school meals in balancing food budgets and diets among 45 lowincome families in Portugal. Drawing on interviews with both parents and children (aged 11–15 years) we found that children’s views on the quality of school meals affect their willingness to eat at sc...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Cardoso, Sónia (author)
Other Authors: Truninger, Mónica (author), Ramos, Vasco (author), Augusto, Fábio Rafael (author)
Format: article
Language:eng
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10451/38733
Country:Portugal
Oai:oai:repositorio.ul.pt:10451/38733
Description
Summary:This paper addresses the importance of school meals in balancing food budgets and diets among 45 lowincome families in Portugal. Drawing on interviews with both parents and children (aged 11–15 years) we found that children’s views on the quality of school meals affect their willingness to eat at school and heighten parental concerns with health, food and resources. For parents, school meals are crucial to ensure children’s dietary variety and balancing tight food budgets. Schools’ role in food poverty alleviation is also critically addressed, contributing to current and future sociological studies of children, school meals and food poverty.