Factors associated with universal infant free school meal take up and refusal in a multicultural urban community

Background: Universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) were introducedin September 2014 and are available to all key stage 1 (4–7 years) childrenattending state-maintained infant and primary schools in England. The pre-sent study aimed to investigate the school-based factors, child and familysocio-demographic characteristics, and parental beliefs associated withUIFSM take up in an urban community.Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was completed in Octoberto November 2015, amongst parents whose children attended eligibleschools in Leicester, England. A questionnaire about school meals was alsocompleted by each school.Results: Parents reported their child did not take (non-UIFSM, n = 159) ortook (UIFSM, n = 517) a UIFSM on most days. The non-UIFSM groupwere more likely to be White-British, have a higher socio-economic status,have English as a first language, and involve their child in the decision overwhether or not to take UIFSM, compared to the UIFSM group. Clusteranalysis revealed that non-UIFSM parents were either concerned over qual-ity of meals and what/how much their child ate, concerned only by what/how much their child ate or whether their child did not like the food pro-vided. Two subsets of parents in the UIFSM group were either very positiveabout UIFSM or appeared to take meals because they were free. Schoolsused a variety of measures to increase and maintain UIFSM take up.Conclusions: Parents like to have control over what their child eats atschool and children need to enjoy their school meals. Using a range ofinterventions to target subsets of parents may help local authorities, schoolsand caterers to increase UIFSM take up.