Obesity and Nutritional Programs in Schools

Abstract Purpose To establish whether nutritional programs in special schools for children with neuropsychomotor deficiencies in Romania influence the prevalence of obesity compared to similar programs for unaffected children attending normal schools. Materials and methods The survey included 3,103 pupils (age: 7-18 years): 663 from special schools serving breakfast, lunch and a snack and 2,440 from normal schools benefiting only from the EU fruit and milk in schools program. Results The percentage of obese children in the normal schools was 8.97%, against 6.48% in the special schools. Although the presence of the deficiency implies the existence of several risk factors for obesity, contrary to expectations we find a smaller number of obese children among the children from the special schools. Under these circumstances, where there are multiple risk factors for obesity and food consumption is normal for the age group, with a higher ratio of hyper-caloric food the children with deficiencies have less prevalent obesity. Conclusions The low obesity prevalence in the special schools is due to the nutritional programs these children benefit from. Nutritional programs should be rethought in terms of introducing them in all school types, especially in relation to quantitative standards.