{"doi":"10.3390/nu16040488","title":"School Nutrition Personnel Perceptions of School Salad Bars before and after COVID-19","abstract":"Many schools have salad bars as a means to increase students’ fruit and vegetable intake. School nutrition programs experienced drastic changes to the school food environment due to COVID-19. The aim of the current study was to understand cafeteria personnel’s experiences related to salad bar implementation before the COVID-19 pandemic and in the current school environment to inform efforts to enhance salad bar sustainability. Seven elementary schools (N = 30 personnel) installed salad bars prior to COVID-19; three of these schools (n = 13 personnel) re-opened salad bars after COVID-19. Cafeteria personnel completed surveys assessing their experiences with salad bars at both time points. Satisfaction with salad bar implementation and training was high pre- and post-COVID-19. Most agreed that salad bars increased students’ fruit and vegetable intake, yet had concerns about cleanliness and waste. Perceived job difficulty increased post-COVID-19 (p = 0.01), and satisfaction with student salad bar training decreased (p = 0.001). Additional staff support and greater student training were needed post-COVID-19. Overall, salad bars were viewed favorably; however, more challenges and lower satisfaction were reported following COVID-19. Increasing support for cafeteria personnel is needed for salad bar sustainability and improving the school food environment.","journal":"Nutrients","year":2024,"id":479422,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9552,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1124864,"name":"A. M. M. Mendoza","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":388550,"name":"Suzanne E. Mazzeo","orcid":"0000-0003-0682-9891","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":518951,"name":"Hollie A. Raynor","orcid":"0000-0002-3782-9504","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":311093,"name":"Lilian de Jonge","orcid":"0000-0001-5900-0695","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1272347,"name":"Kristina L. Tatum","orcid":"0000-0003-4697-7573","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1296524,"name":"Bonnie Moore","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":236006,"name":"Melanie K. Bean","orcid":"0000-0002-8695-8054","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1193457,"name":"Katlyn Garr","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":23,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:06:50.355747Z","pmid":"38398812","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}