Cafeteria menu makeover could reduce students' sugar, salt intake

 

Pizza, pastries and parfaits are staples in many school cafeterias. But new research from the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi suggests some of students' favorite meals may contain more sodium and sugar than schools will be allowed to serve under updated federal nutrition standards.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will require schools across the United States to reduce sodium and added sugars in meals by fall 2027. A new study published in Nutrition Reviews aimed to identify which popular menu items are highest in sodium and sugar, giving school officials a starting point for creating healthier menus.

School meals are designed to meet nutrition standards, and for many children, they are among the most balanced meals they eat," said Aleshia Hall-Campbell, executive director of the Institute of Child Nutrition at Ole Miss. "But because students may eat school breakfast and lunch many times each week, the nutrition quality of those meals matters.

"Reducing added sugars and sodium is not about blaming school meals. It is about using school meals as an opportunity to support children's health while still serving foods students enjoy."

The researchers aimed to create healthier versions of students' preferred meals that adhere to updated guidelines for the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program, said Ruaa Al Juboori, assistant professor of public health and data analytics statistician.

"For families, the practical point is that these changes are not about taking away foods students enjoy," she said. "They are about making the foods already served in schools a little healthier while keeping them familiar, flavorful and appealing to students.

"This matters because school meals reach many children every day. For students who eat breakfast and lunch at school, even small changes in added sugar and sodium can make a difference over time."

To make students' favorite foods healthier, the researchers surveyed 1,071 school nutrition professionals to determine what schools serve and what students eat most often. Then they reviewed recipes for those cafeteria items – such as pizza, smoothies, yogurt parfaits, muffins and chicken wings – to identify which foods contained the highest amounts of sugar and sodium.

For example, flavored chicken wings recipes average more than 2,100 milligrams of sodium per serving. The USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends adults eat no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day.

Excess sodium intake over time is linked to high blood pressure, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Because many students eat school meals every weekday, researchers say even modest reductions in sodium could have meaningful long-term health benefits.

Substituting herbs and spices for excess salt and sugar can make recipes healthier. But those improved recipes will succeed only if students will eat them, the researchers said.

"While sodium and sugar make foods taste good, herbs and spices can also add flavor to the foods we eat," said Marjuyua Lartey Gibson, director of the institute's Applied Research Division at Southern Miss. "School nutrition professionals should explore flavor enhancers, such as spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger for sweetness, and salt substitutes like herbs – rosemary, thyme, garlic and paprika – to minimize sodium.

"Taste testing and student feedback are also important, because the best recipe change is one that students will actually eat."

While the primary goal of the research was to help schools meet nutrition guidelines, the long-term impact of improving cafeteria offerings is improving student health.

"School meals alone do not determine a child's lifelong eating habits, but they can play an important role," Hall-Campbell said. "Children are exposed to foods at school again and again, so school meals can help shape what students see as normal, familiar and acceptable.

"That is why balance is important. We want students to enjoy their meals, but we also want them to become familiar with foods that are lower in added sugar and sodium and still taste good."

This material is based on work supported by the USDA grant no. FNS-CN-ICN-FY23.

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Journal

Nutrition Reviews

DOI

10.1093/nutrit/nuaf290 

New teaching method could help Aboriginal languages survive and thrive

 

A new teaching approach could help incorporate Aboriginal languages into classrooms to teach younger generations and potentially prevent important cultural connections from being lost

Curtin University-led research has unveiled a new teaching approach which could help incorporate Aboriginal languages into Australian classrooms to teach younger generations and potentially prevent these important cultural connections from being lost.

 

Researchers spent a year in an Aboriginal playgroup developing a new teaching model called ‘translingual yarning pedagogy (TYP)’.

 

TYP combines ‘yarning’ — a traditional Aboriginal practice of storytelling and shared learning — with translanguaging, which encourages students to draw on all their language skills to communicate, including English, Aboriginal languages and non-verbal communication such as gesture, song and play.

 

The study saw preschool-aged children learning Noongar take part in yarning circles, songs and storytelling activities, allowing them to move naturally between languages while engaging with Aboriginal cultural knowledge.

 

Researchers found this flexible, culturally embedded approach helped children participate more actively and confidently in language learning.

 

Lead author Professor Sender Dovchin from Curtin’s School of Education said the findings highlighted the importance of shifting away from rigid, English-dominated teaching methods.

 

“Rather than separating languages or focusing on ‘correct’ forms, we saw children freely using English, Noongar and gesture together to make meaning,” Professor Dovchin said.

 

“This created a space where children were not just learning words, but connecting language with culture, identity and everyday experience.”

 

While more than 250 Aboriginal languages were once spoken across Australia, only a small number are still actively learned as first languages and are often underrepresented in formal education.

 

Study co-author, Yalkarang Consulting founder and Noongar language educator Tamara Tucker said approaches such as TYP were critical to making language learning meaningful and sustainable.

 

“When children learn language through culture like story, song, movement and connection to Country, it becomes something they feel, not just something they memorise,” Ms Tucker said.

 

“This kind of learning builds pride, confidence and a stronger connection to identity, which is essential if we want to keep our languages strong for future generations.”

 

The research also challenges the way language learning is framed in schools, where Aboriginal languages are often excluded from mainstream Languages Other Than English programs, which tend to prioritise global languages.

 

Professor Dovchin said the findings pointed to a broader opportunity for education systems to better recognise Aboriginal languages as part of Australia’s linguistic landscape.

 

“This approach shows what is possible when classrooms value students’ full cultural and linguistic backgrounds,” she said.

 

“By embedding Aboriginal languages and ways of learning into education, we can create more inclusive classrooms while supporting the revitalisation of languages that have been marginalised for generations.”

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DOI

10.1080/07908318.2026.2644180 

What explains gender pay gaps in academia?

Gender pay gaps in academia are well documented. The harder question is why they persist.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) tested several leading answers to that question.

Co-authored by researchers from the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy and Rady School of Management, the analysis covered faculty across all ten University of California campuses in anthropology, business, economics, political science, sociology and smaller social science fields grouped as “other.”

Overall, women faculty in the study earned 23% less than men. When the researchers accounted for field, UC campus and when faculty began their academic careers, the gap narrowed to 4.3%.

Testing the Productivity Explanation

Did the remaining gap reflect differences in scholarly output?

To find out, the researchers paired UC salary records with publication and citation histories drawn from Scopus author profiles. They also accounted for academic rank.

Faculty with more publications and citations tended to earn more. But adding academic rank, publications and citations did little to reduce the 4.3% gap.

“We tested one of the most common explanations for gender pay gaps in academia: that differences in pay reflect differences in measurable productivity. What we found is that productivity matters for pay, but it does not explain away the gender gap,” said Elizabeth Lyons, corresponding author of the study and associate professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy.

Transparency Alone Wasn’t Enough

Salary transparency is often proposed as one way to narrow gender pay gaps. The idea is simple: When people know what their colleagues earn, they may be better positioned to spot disparities and seek corrections.

The UC system offered a useful setting to test this idea because faculty salaries are already publicly available. Yet gender pay gaps persist. That’s not to say transparency has no value, the co-authors write, but it does suggest that public access to salary information alone is not enough to eliminate gender pay gaps.

Representation ≠ Pay Equity

One of the study’s surprises was how much pay gaps varied by field.

After accounting for observable differences, gender pay gaps persisted in business, sociology and anthropology. But the researchers found no statistically detectable pay gap in the smaller social science fields grouped as “other” or in political science and economics.

The contrast between economics and anthropology was especially striking. Women made up less than 20% of economics faculty in the study period, yet economics showed no detectable pay gap. In anthropology, where women and men were roughly equally represented, women earned about 93 cents for every dollar earned by men.

“Women’s representation in the faculty matters and deserves to be better understood, but it won’t necessarily fix the pay gap,” said Gaurav Khanna, a co-author of the study and professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy. “Representation does not necessarily predict pay equality.”

Why Field Differences Matter

The study does not identify a single fix. But the differences across fields give universities a place to look.

Economics and political science, for example, may have more centralized labor markets and more standardized ways of evaluating scholarly output. In sociology and anthropology, where books and monographs play a larger role, output may be harder to compare in the same way. Business fields may involve still other dynamics, including subfield composition, with men disproportionately represented in higher-paying areas such as finance.

“The variation across fields matters because it shows these gaps are not inevitable,” said Marta Serra-Garcia, a co-author of the study and professor at the Rady School of Management. “It also gives universities a place to start – by asking what fields with smaller gaps may be doing differently.” 

Paper: “Gender pay gaps in the social sciences.” 

Study authors: Ayelet Gneezy, Uri Gneezy and Marta Serra-Garcia, Rady School of Management; Joshua Graff Zivin, Gaurav Khanna and Elizabeth Lyons, School of Global Policy and Strategy. Graff Zivin is also affiliated with UC San Diego’s Department of Economics.

Funding: supported in part by the Cowhey Center for Global Transformation (CCGT) at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. 

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2524119123 

Problematic social media use and ADHD symptoms in adolescents

 This study of U.S. youths found that year-to-year elevations in self-reported problematic social media use were directly associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms during mid-adolescence, particularly among males; reverse associations of ADHD symptoms with later problematic social media use were small in magnitude and sporadic. Screening for hard-to-control social media use, time spent on social media, and attention to sex-specific patterns may be warranted.

Complete study

Dropping SAT and ACT may improve access, but hinder college admissions

 Dropping standardized testing requirements may make admission to college more accessible for some, but it can also make it harder for universities to identify high-potential students, according to new research published in the INFORMS journal Management Science.

That research suggests the decision involves nuanced tradeoffs between the informational value of test scores and barriers to access. Moreover, the study shows that dropping the testing requirement can even move diversity and academic merit in the same direction: it is possible to improve both, or worsen both, at once.

The study, "Dropping Standardized Testing for Admissions Trades Off Information and Access," develops a statistical discrimination framework that shows that if you drop a feature like test score review, this could impact the context with which you then see all of the other data used in the review and vetting process. Holistically, the review process depends on the information provided by other application components and how, collectively, that requirement shapes the applicant pool.

The findings add important nuance to ongoing policy debates in higher education: removing standardized testing may expand access for underrepresented groups but can also reduce the ability to accurately assess academic merit, particularly for students from nontraditional backgrounds. In some settings, it improves diversity and merit simultaneously; in others, it worsens outcomes across multiple metrics.

“The decision to drop standardized testing involves a fundamental tradeoff between information and access,” said Nikhil Garg of Cornell University, a co-author of the study. “Test scores provide valuable signals, especially when other parts of the application are less informative for certain groups of students, but access barriers can prevent some qualified students from even applying.”

The study examined the admissions process where schools evaluate applicants based on multiple features, such as grades, recommendation letters, essays, and test scores, while considering capacity constraints and fairness goals. The researchers examined both non-strategic access barriers and strategic student behavior. Using calibrated simulations, the authors demonstrated practical scenarios where outcomes would vary significantly.

“Our results showed that dropping the test can exacerbate disparities by decreasing available information, especially for nontraditional applicants,” said Hannah Li of Columbia Business School, a study co-author. “Still, when access barriers are substantial, removing the test scores requirement can expand the pool in ways that may improve both merit and diversity.”

The study further shows that student test-taking behavior may have some counterintuitive effects, complicating admissions decisions. This is particularly the case in multi-school settings where you may have one school applying a more restrictive standard, and another competing school, applying a less restrictive acceptance standard. The study shows that when some schools drop the test and others keep it, some qualified students may opt out of testing entirely, missing the chance to apply to schools they otherwise would have been admitted to.

“Our findings suggest that policymakers and admissions offices need to jointly consider the informational environment and access barriers rather than viewing the testing requirement decision in isolation in a 'tests good vs. tests bad' manner,” said Faidra Monachou of Yale School of Management, a study co-author. “These decisions affect not just who gets admitted, but also who gets to apply in the first place, and ultimately the academic merit and diversity of the admitted class.”

The study raises important questions about how institutions can balance competing goals, where colleges and universities seek to balance access, merit, and diversity. In the end, the study authors concluded that schools may benefit from investing in better signals for all applicants, while still working to reduce access barriers, instead of just dropping test score requirements.

Read the full study here.

High school track experience gives baseball players an edge

 

A new study from a University of Florida sport management professor and colleagues is challenging long-held assumptions about how young athletes should train and suggesting that Major League Baseball teams might be missing players with a competitive edge.

The researchers found that baseball players who participated in high school track performed better at the professional level than those who specialized solely in baseball. Yet despite this measurable advantage, MLB teams do not appear to value track experience when drafting players or offering signing bonuses.

“It’s a bit of a Moneyball-type finding. There’s a clear performance benefit, but teams aren’t recognizing it when they make decisions about talent,” said Chris McLeod, Ph.D., an associate professor in UF’s Department of Sport Management.

Mcleod contributed to the project launched by Tiberiu Ungureanu, Ph.D., Jason Sigler, Ph.D., and Zeynep Yavic, Ph.D., who share doctoral roots at The Ohio State University.

The study, soon to be published in the Journal of Sport Management, draws on an unusually rich dataset. Supported by the Society of American Baseball Research, Ungureanu, Sigler and Yavic combined decades of detailed professional performance records with nearly 97,000 historical survey responses from baseball players, originally collected by historian William Weiss. The surveys included a key question: which sports players participated in during high school.

By linking those responses to long-term career outcomes, the team identified patterns that previous research missed.

Their findings point to specific advantages: track appears to develop speed, explosiveness and timing — skills that translate directly to success in baseball, particularly in base running and fielding. Other sports, such as basketball or football, did not show the same consistent benefit.

“Multisport participation isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer,” McLeod said. “It depends on whether the skills from one sport crossover to another. Other sports do not consistently relate to performance improvement for baseball players like track does.”

The implications extend beyond professional scouting. For families navigating the increasingly high-pressure world of youth sports, the research offers evidence against early specialization — a trend that has grown as travel teams and year-round training programs become more common.

“There’s a lot of anxiety among parents about making the ‘right’ choice for their child’s future,” McLeod said. “Our study is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that specializing early in baseball alone does not necessarily lead to better outcomes.”

To strengthen the study’s conclusions, the researchers also addressed a key question: are naturally faster athletes simply more likely to choose track? Using a statistical method called Coarsened Exact Matching, they compared players with similar physical characteristics, such as height and weight. Even after matching players on those factors, track participation remained linked to better performance.

The study also uncovered a disconnect in how talent is evaluated. Analysis of previously unexamined baseball scouting reports showed limited mention of track backgrounds or even negative references to track as a distraction from baseball. Players with track experience were not rated more highly by scouts, despite their later success.

For MLB organizations, the takeaway is straightforward: better use of available information could translate into more wins.

“For teams, this is about identifying undervalued talent,” McLeod said. “For athletes and families, it’s about making informed decisions. And for researchers, it shows how much we can learn when we combine new data with long-term performance records.”

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DOI

10.1123/jsm.2025-0223 

Tips to help teachers in 21st century classrooms

 Where to Now? Teaching in the 21st Century is a research-informed book roviding in-depth discussions of teaching, from junior primary to Year 10 levels, while identifying and addressing the multi-faceted challenges that pre-service and early career teachers can face.

Dr Loretta Bowshall-Freeman, co-author of the book and Deputy Teaching Program Director (Education) at Flinders University’s College of Human Sciences and Culture, says the role of teachers has expanded in recent years – and key strategies are required to help pre-service and early career teachers navigate professional challenges while they also maintain focus on teaching priorities.

“This extends beyond the classroom. It includes ways to support pre-service and early career teachers as they prepare for a new teaching role, day-to-day and long-term professional logistic solutions, and effective approaches for working with curriculum and education policies,” says Dr Bowshall-Freeman.

The book also examines how teachers can prepare for new roles within their teaching responsibilities, embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, navigate curriculum and policy demands, manage classrooms effectively, and design inclusive, engaging and assessable learning opportunities.

It explores strategies for professional collaboration and networking to sustain long-term growth and reflective practice – and also provides case studies, recommended readings and guided responses.

“Teaching today is not a script that teachers simply follow. In every lesson, teachers are reading the room, noticing who is engaging, who is struggling, who’s thinking is emerging, and what needs to happen next,” says book co-author and Flinders University colleague Dr Rozi Binte Rahmat.

“This book was written for those real classroom moments, offering practical, research-informed strategies that help teachers make confident and responsive decisions.”

Teaching Strategies in the 21st Century supports new educators to transition into their roles with confidence, while laying the foundations for a reflective, adaptive and student-centred practice.

“My work in assessment has always reminded me that teaching is not just about what teachers do, but about how students experience learning,” says Dr Rozi. “A strategy is only powerful when it helps teachers notice student thinking, respond to different needs, and create opportunities for all learners to show what they know and can do. That is the kind of practical, responsive teaching this book supports.”

The book – Teaching Strategies in the 21st Century: Where to Now?, by Loretta Bowshall-Freeman, Rozi Binte Rahmat and Michael Colbung (published by Cambridge University Press) – is available as an eBook from 16 July, with hardcopy versions available from 30 July.

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