Acceptance of fish hamburgers in school meals in the Southwest Region of Paraná, Brazil

Abstract

The regular consumption of fish provides health gains for people, and its introduction in school meals is an important strategy to insert the habit of consuming this food by a population. Thus the objective of this study was to verify the acceptance of fish, presented in the form of hamburger, by children in municipal primary schools in the town of Pato Branco, Brazil, in which the school cooks had been trained to produce fish hamburgers. Acceptance was evaluated using a hedonic scale with 5 facial classifications (1 = disliked extremely to 5 = liked extremely). Students of both genders from 5 to 10 years of age (n = 142) were served the hamburgers for their midday meal, representing the protein portion of the meal. The results were analyzed by logistic regression. No effect of age or gender was observed between the children in the acceptance of the hamburgers, but the interaction between age and gender was significant. The cluster analysis was applied to distinguish this interaction using two-way joining to present the results, which showed the effect between specific age and gender situations. The acceptance index was 87% showing the potential for the consumption of this food by children.