Family themes
Five main themes were developed from the transcripts of family focus groups. (See Table 3 for an overview.) In general, parents felt the program had a positive impact for them and their children. At the household level, financial hardship was reduced:
It’s $60 or $70 off your grocery bill, it’s huge.
Quite often pay day will be Tuesday and that’s when you’d get your groceries and after the weekend, that Monday, it would be like I can’t even do a sandwich. That’s the last piece of fruit, which kid is going to get it.
The savings on groceries during term time were particularly noticeable when the grocery bills increased during school holidays. However, the overall reduction in the grocery bill for lunch items had been counter balanced by recent cost of living increases and rising food prices for the food they purchased for other meals. Reductions in financial hardship were lower if parents were still providing alternative snacks due to perceptions that their children did not like the school lunch food offered.
Provision of lunches was associated with reduced stress in the mornings.
“There’s not that morning dash to the shop because they ate the bread…. So, now I don’t care, they’ll get fed at school. They get breakfast and they get lunch and leftovers to come home.“
I’m definitely less stressed about filling up that lunchbox.
Caregivers mentioned that through exposure to new foods in the school lunch program, they felt their children’s taste preferences were changing, making previously picky eaters ‘less fussy’ and introducing healthier foods into their preferences. This extended into the home environment.
We notice with our college moko (grandchild), she was taking packets and packets of biscuits just to give to her mates at school because that’s what they lived on, biscuits and noodles. But now that they’ve got lunches at the college, she leaves them sitting in the cupboard.
My daughter asked me to buy a pumpkin at the supermarket. “Mum, can we get a pumpkin?” “What for?” “Pumpkin soup.
“And the things they eat in their kai (food) what they never eat at home. Vegetables and other stuff… now they’re saying names of food that we don’t put on the marae (traditional meeting house) table. Like chickpeas!”
This openness to try new and healthy foods was partially attributed to students eating with their peers.
‘Watching all the other students eat the vegetables too has helped my daughters. They used to turn their nose up at vegetables. I used to have to try and hide them but now they're more than happy to try them.”
We asked if parents felt that school meals were a good use of government funding and whether it was mana-enhancing, that is, creating wellbeing and pride, or whether it could be seen as another government handout that did not support families to become autonomous. All responses indicated that the program enhanced mana for both families and students. It was seen to enhance the mana of the previously hungry children, but also of the children who used to feel ashamed that they had more food than their friends. The equitable approach was interpreted positively because the same food was eaten by all. The practice of eating together and sharing the experience was also highly valued, particularly as a place where cultural values could be expressed.
It is [mana] enhancing, not only for us as a school but for us as whānau (family) too, because we know that our kids are happy here getting fed what they need to, makes us happy back home too.
I think for our tamariki (children), yes. I think it is mana enhancing for them to be able to come to a place they come to every day all year long and to know that they are valued enough to have kai (food).
And everyone is equal
For us personally, it’s just normal to have a moment together [for karakia/ prayer] before you have kai in the morning and at night time. I think that’s awesome that you’ve got it at school because then they’re still bringing their kaupapa (practices) home.
In addition, some parents had observed attendance changes for their children,
Before the program came along, if my mokos (grandchildren) didn’t have lunch, I wouldn’t let them go to school because I didn’t want them going to school knowing that Timmy’s eating lunch and my moko is not.
My kids love coming to school. But I'm not going to lie, I'm going to say it’s because they get lunches at school.
Notwithstanding the clear benefits mentioned above, caregivers had concerns about the lack of variety in the menu and food that was seen to be overly healthy. They felt that their children did not like eating many of the healthier options and they wanted their children to enjoy their food and be well fed. This was a challenge due to the underlying belief many held that children were fussy and picky eaters who did not enjoy eating healthy food. As such, many were still providing alternative food, resulting in lower uptake of the school lunches.
They just complain about the lunches, that it’s not nice, so I do pack them a full lunchbox as well.
My son doesn’t really talk about the lunches because I pack his lunch. I think it’s partly because he’s fussy and there’s some of the things that he doesn’t like.
Some parents spoke of how they had managed their own children’s fussiness, ‘being tough’ and telling their kids that they must either eat the school lunches or go hungry. For others, they found it difficult to enforce rules which would make their children unhappy, or hungry, so continued providing alternative snack food.
Concerns about the program were associated with a lack of knowledge theme. There was a generalized feeling that parents did not know much about the program. They did not receive much information from the school about the program or about the weekly menus. They were able to glean information from their children, but mentioned they usually only talked about the negative aspects such as when they had not liked the lunch.
To be honest, I don’t really know much about it besides it’s free lunch … We don’t really know where it comes from or anything like that.
I don’t know unless I ask my son every day after school. I never know unless I ask him.
I have one child here, not that she talks too much about what’s good. She just tells me what she doesn’t like.
The lack of knowledge was attributed to the feeling that schools had not communicated or consulted with them about the different options in the beginning (for example, the choice between the internal or external model). They would have liked to receive communication, to see menus printed in the newsletter or on the school app, to hear about the vision for the program and to see pictures of the children eating together. They would like to think that the children know the cooks (in the internal model) and speak to them regularly about the types of food they like and do not like.
Student Themes
Six themes overall were identified for students. They are described according to school lunch model (internal with cook on site) or external (caterer delivering food to school) as opinions of the program differed based on the two models (cf. Table 3 for overview).
Overall, students recognized food security and equity benefits. They felt that for many students who used to go hungry, the lunches, morning tea and leftover food available to take home were fulfilling an essential need and enhancing equity. They were conscious that the provision of lunches in school had alleviated financial hardship at home.
For students in the internal model, they felt that learning to appreciate the lunches had taken time. The program had been in place for 18 months at the time of the focus group and there was evidence that, after initial hesitancies, their taste preferences were changing:
Yeah I didn't really like the food at the start, but I guess my tastes are changing and I get used to it now and I like it. .
I eat better now. I like the lunches... Good for my health as well.
The initial resistance to the program related to the loss of their school tuck-shop which had sold highly palatable (tasty) and affordable food that could be purchased throughout the day. While this was in part connected to the change in food type, deeper consideration shows that this was linked to a theme of loss of agency for these adolescents who had been able to enjoy the freedom of eating what they wanted, when they wanted it throughout the school day, rather than at the prescribed morning tea and lunch serving time.
“The choices, like they felt in control because they were able to choose their own lunch. To a lot of teenagers, that’s quite big, because maybe they won’t get that at home or something. Having that choice for one meal a day is huge for their self-esteem and confidence and everything.” (Senior student)
The transition time was also linked to a theme of uncertainty and confusion about the new school lunch program due to a perceived lack of communication from the school, unfamiliar process and unfamiliar foods. Whereas students had enjoyed exercising their own free will to decide what they would eat, to purchase items to bring to school and to purchase treat items on occasion, what they ate was now under school control. These moments of enjoyment were lost through the introduction of a one-size-fits-all program where each meal was healthy and nutritious but considered to lack variety. In addition, the introduction of the lunches was accompanied by changes in school policy around food used in celebrations (like end of term lunches or bake sales). These were not allowed under the new system which they regretted, feeling that these logistical issues had not been discussed with them nor resolved.
Students in the external model school, in contrast, did not show any evidence of having moved through these transition difficulties and the two main themes were low uptake of lunches and perceived poor quality of food / lack of palatability. The lunches were seen as a free hand out for hungry students as they were in a low advantage school.
“It's seen as free food rather than 'this is our lunch’”.
These negative perceptions were exacerbated by logistic difficulties such as late deliveries, episodes of frozen food, and hot meals delivered cold and no ability to reheat them, such that the students had, in majority, set their minds to not liking the food.
Yeah, I’d say once or twice a week the food is late. If you’ve got completely frozen corn, heaps of time, then how can you justify that? It wasn’t just one person had frozen corn. The whole school got them! Of course they're going to throw it around when we can’t even call it kai. It’s like dog tucker.
This, combined with the school canteen offering alternative food perceived to be much more palatable than healthy lunches, and that students were still allowed to bring their own food to school, meant there was limited uptake of the lunches. Only two students in this focus group said they ate the meals almost every day – one because ‘he would eat anything’ and another ‘because her parents told her to and she should be grateful’. This links in to the underlying theme of the belief that healthy food is unlikely to be tasty. Students felt that the meals were too healthy, thus lacking variety and taste.
Who wants to be waiting for a kai (food), getting 'hangry' (hungry and angry), and then it comes and then it’s not even something nice? You know, I'm not being ungrateful, it's just I feel like if I was them [the caterer],… I would be trying to make something that reaches the most people, that the most people like.
Accordingly, on any given day there were left over lunches (surplus which was redistributed to other schools or community groups) but also wasted food, like salad taken out of wraps, that was either put in pig bins or directly in landfill.
Principal Themes
Five main themes were developed from principal interviews. (See Table 3 for an overview). All principals spoke of food insecurity in their schools, for example, giving examples of the hunger that had been present in their schools prior to the introduction of the program and the resulting behavioral issues. For instance, in an episode of bad behavior:
“When I got to the bottom of it, I’d say it was the Wednesday lunchtime, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast the Tuesday” (Secondary School Principal, internal model)
The second theme relates to equity benefits. Having all the students enjoy the same food with no questions or stigma attached was mentioned as a major positive attribute of the program, as it was not always obvious which children needed more support.
“We had breakfast club and stuff, and we did what we could for lunches but it’s not the same [as a universal program] because …. what about that kid that’s amazing, that dresses beautifully, always polite, on with it with their work? How the hell are you going to know [that they’re hungry]? ” (Secondary School Principal, internal model)
The third theme relates to opportunities for learning which were identified only in internal model schools. In a primary school, the principal mentioned daily learning opportunities involved in serving the lunches:
“Our junior class, the first thing she’s going to do is just get them to go in and count the plates, count the forks. That’s a tiny bit of math, just getting them in there and getting them involved in a really tiny way first of all.” (Primary School Principal, recently transitioned to internal model.)
Exposure to nutritious lunches was also considered to give life-skills and knowledge and break a cycle for these students in low advantage communities who need better ‘understanding around how best to feed themselves’:
“We want the students to leave here knowing that there are healthy options, and that they like the taste of a whole range of foods that they would never otherwise have had because they’re too expensive, basically, the fresh stuff. “ (Secondary School Principal, internal model)
These wider benefits, including embedding more nutritional learning in the curriculum, integrating cultural values such as eating together and saying karakia (prayer), and opportunities for school pride, were mentioned only in the internal schools. In the external model school, the focus was more on the food insecurity theme of feeding students that may have otherwise gone hungry.
With regard to the quality of the food, the three schools using an internal model felt that they were providing tasty and nutritious food with some variability in whether the children liked the food (which was reflected in the number of uneaten lunches and used as immediate feedback for the cooks). The school using an external caterer were not as happy with the quality of the food:
“OK, well the food has been a little bit of a journey … in general, everything that is being produced is edible. And no, there's nothing wrong with the food as such. Some of it is better than others, and there's been the odd occasion where food has not been very appetizing or look very appetizing either.” (Secondary School Principal, external caterer model)
The school who had recently transitioned cited the poor quality of the food delivered as the major motivation to change to an internal model.
“The food we were receiving from the external provider was rubbish.” (Primary School Principal.)
Poor quality food from external providers was further attested two by the other principals who spoke of their awareness of this through discussions with other principals. When food was considered unappetizing by the kids it was left uneaten. Each school had a solution, both for uneaten lunches (i.e. redistributed to students who wanted more, taken home by students to their families, given to other schools, or used in the next day’s cooking) and for food waste (generally put in pig buckets).
Principals were aware that the food presented through the school lunches was different to food presented in homes and this was seen as a positive thing to teach kids about new foods; but they recognized that food was being wasted (particularly in the external model school) because kids were picky eaters.
“It [wasted food] depends on what they’re cooking and presenting. It seems to be any new food that the kids haven’t seen before or tried before, there’s a little bit of resistance and so both the leftover and the waste does tend to be more on those days.” (Primary School Principal, Internal model)
“But the kids are quite picky. The food that they [the caterer] do is nice and it is healthy. But you know, like our kids will pull the chicken out of stuff or pull the fish out of stuff and leave the greens.” (Secondary School Principal, external caterer model)
All principals recognized that introducing the school lunch program at their school had taken time and thought, in particular for schools who had chosen to use the internal model. Recruiting trustworthy staff to manage the kitchen, purchase and cook for the students every day, was a responsibility that fell to principals. Similarly, setting up the infrastructure with a functional on-site kitchen was a challenge that required space and investment, but the resulting quality of food was considered to make the investment worthwhile. The external model school cited that the investment required to have a functioning kitchen at school was the reason they did not choose the internal model.
Principals recognized the necessity of parental support for the program, speaking of parents who were considered to pander to their children letting them pick and choose what to eat at home. This was seen to influence uptake of the healthy school lunches. Finally, all principals wanted to see the program continue and expressed concern about the potential impact of removing free lunches now that many students were receiving food daily through Ka Ora, Ka Ako.