FOOD SERVICE IN RURAL SCHOOLS 55 



service is better patronized than in the larger buildings situated in villages, 

 even though these latter may have a higher proportion of children staying for 

 the noon meal. This is primarily due to the teacher's efforts; for if the lone 

 teacher is willing to undertake the labor involved in any kind of service, she 

 is sufficiently interested to make the children enthusiastic supporters of the 

 project; while in bigger buildings, where a specially employed person runs the 

 service, there is frequently much indifference on the part of the teachers. 



The Need for School Supervision of the Children's Food 



The propriety of considering pupils' food a matter within the province of 

 school authorities and teachers is justified by a study of (1) the number of 

 absences due to digestive disorders; (2) the contents of the children's |boix 

 lunches; and (3) the inability of the individual pupil to provide, without co- 

 operation, certain highly desirable types of food and food service. Further- 

 more, a lunch period supervised both as to nutrition and as to conduct offers 

 unusual opportunities for education in health and training in essential good 

 manners. 



Nutrition 



That frequently there remains much to be desired in the nutrition of the 

 elementary school child is evident from a scrutiny of the real causes of ab- 

 sence from school. During the year 1928-1929, 16 teachers of schools in vari- 

 ous parts of the state kept for this study special records of the number, dura- 

 tion, and true cause (not necessarily the reason appearing on the child's ex- 

 cuse) of all absences. Of the 470 children included in the records, 213 walked 

 to and from school and 257 were furnished transportation. Second only to 

 colds among the illnesses were "stomach upsets", and many of the absences 

 tabulated under the heading of "colds" were recorded by the teachers as 

 "indigestion and cold". The absences due to digestive disturbances were pro- 

 portionately more frequent among the children who rode to school than among 

 those who walked. All the children who rode ate lunch at school, while almost 

 without exception those who walked lived near enough to go home for the 

 noon meal. A factor in the greater incidence of indigestion among the child- 

 dren who ate box lunches may be the "piecing" habit of these children. It is 

 rare to find a child bringing food to school if he is going home at noon, while 

 it is even more rare to find one who has a lunch box who does not eat from 

 it at recess — generally a large portion of cake. This practice is by no means 

 the same thing as the serving of a carefully chosen mid-morning lunch. It 

 might be stopped by the teachers, but they do not very often attempt to do so. 



To ascertain with definiteness and detail just what the children really do 

 carry to school in their lunch boxes, the following procedure was used. A 

 school was visited in the morning and, with the consent of the teacher, each 

 pupil asked to bring his lunch box to his desk and then write down, item by 

 item, exactly what it contained. To insure accurate reporting, the teacher 

 supervised the work and if necessary helped the smaller pupils with the writ- 

 ing. Data on 1,560 lunch boxes were thus secured from the schools of 34 

 towns and the principal items have been tabulated, as shown on page 56 

 and in the chart on page .57. These include lunches carried by children from 

 all the eight grades of the elementary schools. 



