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In a September 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Washington state researchers observed that students who ate sack lunches devoted more time to eating them, than students who ate cafeteria lunches.

A German study published in the September 19, 2007 issue of the Journal “Appetite” revealed that parents were able to predict with significant accuracy what their children actually liked to eat in their school lunches.

The holiday treat binge is over and the new year emerges with its clean new calendar of possibilities. You can take that now scientifically proven parental wisdom and add some creativity to it to keep your child’s lunch nutritious, interesting, and safe.

Keep It Nutritious

Spread Nutella® (hazelnut/chocolate spread) on a small soft tortilla and wrap it around a peeled banana, trimming the banana to fit. Keep it cool.

Chopped veggies — not only celery and carrot sticks, but broccoli florets, sugar snap pea pods, snow pea pods, cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes, and baby corn — all can be dipped in nut butters or yogurt.

Fruits, such as grapes, berries in a container, fresh orange segments, apple and pear slices, pineapple chunks, canned fruit in juice, can be dipped in nut butters or yogurt (using toothpicks.)

Include chunky, no-sugar-added applesauce for a side dish or dessert.

Hard-boiled eggs, cheese strips or chunks, cottage cheese, yogurt, meatballs, sausage slices, mixed nuts, beef jerky or pepperoni make healthy picks.

When I was in elementary school in the early 1960s I lived a block from school and walked home for lunch. Enviously, I watched my classmates bring their colorful cartoon character metal lunch boxes.

Some contained Thermoses ® filled with sugar sweetened artificially flavored drinks, white bread sandwiches, and cream-filled sugary snack cakes for dessert. I was jealous as I walked home to my raw milk, leftover meat and vegetables, an apple and a homemade oatmeal raisin cookie. Now I know better!

Keep It Safe

To keep a lunch cool, freeze a juice box, juice bag, or bottle of water, which will thaw by noon. Put it in a zipper lock bag if you are concerned about it sweating.

For hot or cold foods, both The “Foogo” by Thermos®, which comes with blue and pink trim, and The “Nissan” stainless steel food jar by Thermos®, can be bought online at Amazon.com.

As the variety and quantity of junk foods, sodas, and sugary foods and snacks has risen in our country, so has the national weight problem and the incidence of diabetes and food allergies. The 21st century has seen a renewed public effort to improve the quality of that central event in the day of our children: the school lunch.

But this is not only an American concern. Dietetics and nutritional researchers around the globe study this issue. A 2004 study in Wales showed that elementary students who were shown video adventures of heroic peers eating vegetables, and who were rewarded for eating vegetables themselves, ate substantially more vegetables at lunchtime, snack time and at home than a control group.

Keep It Interesting

If your child likes chicken salad, pimiento cheese, cream cheese and fruit, tuna salad, egg salad, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, just put the filling in a small plastic container and in a separate baggy include pita bread, tortillas or crackers.

Send chopped leftover meat and chopped veggies in a container and taco shells on the side.

Pack apple slices in a thermos of lemonade, which will keep the slices from turning brown.

Use cookie cutters to make the sandwiches different shapes. Make one side of the sandwich light color bread and the other side dark color bread. Cut a shape out of the middle and turn it around.

Use a croissant, a biscuit, a wrap or a mini-bagel instead of regular bread.

In a September 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Washington state researchers observed that students who ate sack lunches devoted more time to eating them, than students who ate cafeteria lunches.

A 2002 British study in the Journal of Public Health Nutrition discovered that students 5-7 years old who ate packed lunches were more likely to correctly recall what they ate two hours later than their cafeteria lunch counterparts. It appears there is something about that personal connection with the packed lunch from home that sticks with a school child.

So for that final touch, besides leaving the rind on the orange, so that your child can put the segment in her mouth and flash the classic orange smile at her friends, cut a joke out of the morning paper and put it in the lunch bag, or include a personal note!

(All studies in this article were researched at www.pubmed.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.)