Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine what pupils in the ninth grade eats for lunch and also whether there is any connection between their lunch habits and perceived ability to concentrate and fatigue. A further aim was to study pupils' experience of dining environment in schools.The study is based on a quantitative method with questionnaires. The study was implemented on four schools in elementary school in themunicipalityofKristianstadand Tanum.
Our results demonstrate, in accordance with several previous studies conducted in the same age group, that it is about half of the pupils who eats school lunch every day and that the majority are eating school lunch 3-5 days a week. Furthermore, our study shows that the pupils who rarely eat vegetables in school feel tired and distracted to a greater extent than the group of pupils who eat vegetables almost daily. Our result also shows that the group of pupils who eat the main course 3-5 days a week feel both tired and distracted to a greater extent than the group of students who eat the main course more rarely.
In accordance with previous studies our study shows that differences exist between boys and girls regarding food that is eaten instead of school lunch. Food containing empty calories is the most popular kind, it causes glucose levels to get out of balance which makes students tired and distracted.The result of our study shows that most pupils claim that they often feel tired and distracted during the school day. Hunger affects the individual's emotions, motivation and cognition (Lennernäs, 2011), which can be linked to the fact that only 6 % of pupils feel that they are getting satisfied every day after eating the school lunch. There are also many pupils who choose not to eat anything else those days they choose to skip the school lunch. Nevertheless, the majority of pupils are still happy with the environment in the school dining room and it is barely half the pupils who want bigger influence on what is served for school lunch.
Date of Award | 2011-Sept-14 |
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Original language | Swedish |
Supervisor | Hanna Sepp (Supervisor) & Ann- Elise Persson (Examiner) |
Educational program
- Teacher Education
University credits
- 15 HE credits
Swedish Standard Keywords
- Pedagogical Work (50304)
Keywords
- elementary school
- environment in dining room
- lunch habits
- ninth grade
- pupil