[Main results of nutrition monitoring of school-age children implemented within the framework of the Federal Project "Public Health Improvement" of the National Project "Demography"].

Abstract

One of the foundations of the state national security is the health of the younger generation. The leading role in its formation belongs to the educational process, an indispensable element of which is nutrition. Given the importance of adherence to the principles of healthy nutrition, nutrition monitoring carried out by the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing in cooperation with the Federal Research Center of Nutrition, Biotechnology and Food Safety within the framework of the federal project "Public Health Improvement" of the national project "Demography" is of particular importance. The objective of the research was to assess the nutritional characteristics of school-age children for the development of scientifically based management decisions in health care. Material and methods. Within the framework of the study, a large-scale interviewing of 3 groups of respondents was conducted in 85 subjects of the Russian Federation: school administrators (more than 16 thousand), catering operators (more than 2400), students in grades 2, 5, and 10, and their parents/legal representatives (more than 650 thousand). Results. Positive changes in the organization of catering have been noted, including an increased range of healthy food and dishes in 66.3% of schools, positive changes in the dietary regime in 25.5% of schools and improved eating conditions in 36.8% of organisations. On the positive side, changes in schoolchildren's eating habits have been revealed: the proportion of children consuming fruit and vegetables daily has increased (from 52.2% in 2021 to 60.6% in 2024, and from 33.2 to 45.1%, respectively, p<0.05); the number of children adding salt to their food and adding more than 2 tablespoons of sugar to drinks has decreased (from 14.1 to 12.7%, and from 21.3 to 15.6%, respectively, p<0.05). Conclusion. Based on the results of the monitoring of schoolchildren's nutrition and taking into account the identified peculiarities of children's diet and health, recommendations were developed for the prevention of nutrition-related health disorders among schoolchildren in all constituent entities of the Russian Federation that participated in the monitoring, and a roadmap for improving children's nutrition was developed, including measures related to children's nutrition in the family and at school.