Nearly one in ten children in primary education say they experience food insecurity, but less than one percent go to school with an empty lunch box. The lunch boxes themselves are only one-third filled with foods that are healthy and environmentally responsible. This is evident from a scientific study into the extent of the empty bread box problem.
For the research, which was conducted by Ghent University and the Flemish Institute for Healthy Living vzw, the contents of the lunch boxes of 1,051 students from a representative sample of 25 Flemish primary schools were mapped. Only three times (0.3 percent) was a completely empty lunch box found.
However, 9 percent of participating children said they had experienced food insecurity in the past 12 months, and therefore had insufficient access to food both at school and at home. These children more often did not bring a snack to school and had not eaten breakfast on the day their lunch box was examined. Some of the children who experience food insecurity appear to regularly receive help from a friend and/or from the school to fill their lunch box.
As for the actual contents of the lunch boxes, it turned out that only a third (35 percent) of them were filled with foods that were healthy and environmentally responsible. The majority of children brought a piece of fruit as a snack (63.6 percent), but in contrast there were few extra fruits and vegetables in the lunch box. The socio-economic background of the children does not appear to be decisive for the contents of the lunch boxes.
