Keywords
National School Lunch Program, sodium, child nutrition, data collection methods
Abstract
Web scraping, a technique for collecting publicly available online data, may facilitate collecting school meal data from large, national samples of school districts in a timely, cost-effective manner. We explore its potential by examining the variation in sodium content of 2 popular entrees served through the US Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program—pizza and chicken nuggets. Daily school menu data were obtained from a national sample of school districts via web scraping. Linking web scraped data to publicly available data on school districts permitted examination of entree sodium content variation across school district geographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Such information may assist nutrition professionals in targeting efforts to meet school nutrition menu objectives. Other potential applications are discussed.
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Brown, Aaron, "Using Web Scraping as a Tool to Collect School Nutrition Data" (2025). Student Works. 421.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studentpub/421
Document Type
Peer-Reviewed Article
Publication Date
2025-07-03
Language
English
College
Family, Home, and Social Sciences
Department
Economics
Copyright Status
Copyright © 2025 Elsevier B.V., its licensors, and contributors. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. For all open access content, the relevant licensing terms apply. This is the author's submitted version of the article. The definitive version can be found at https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1lN5V5KxDO34Cs.
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