[Mass catering for school children in Poland].

The assessment of organization and quality of nutrition was done in 184 urban and 156 rural schools in 1998 to obtain information about changes in that aspect during last few years. Data was collected using questionnaire method. The analysis of obtained results showed that the per-cent of schools organizing one form of nutrition in towns (95.1%) was higher than in villages (64.1%), but the per-cent of pupils consuming at least one meal served in school was lower in towns (22.2%) than in villages (31.3%). In comparison with situation in the beginning of the 90th nutrition was organized by significantly higher amount of schools but improvement of situation relevant to amount of pupils consuming school meals was not so significant. Urban schools the most frequently served full dinners, in rural schools it was often sticky bun or sandwich. Significant per-cent of rural schools did not serve any meal due to bad local conditions and financial problems. From the reason that the per-cent of pupils consuming school meals is too small, it is necessary to undertake actions leading to improvement of the situation in that aspect. These activities should be relevant to increased access to school meals, especially in rural area, decreased cost and quality improvement of these meals.