The school canteen, exceptional in high schools: "Is it that students stop eating?"

PalmaAt IES Son Cladera, the canteen began operating after the pandemic. The school had detected an increase in nutritional needs among families and requested to be able to launch the service. Now, about a dozen students stay there for lunch every day. For some families, the principal explains, the canteen is a support in the face of a complicated economic situation, but the price can also be an impediment. "It is hard for them to buy a prepared meal, but even more so to have to pay eight euros for the canteen," points out Manu Blanco.

The situation at Son Cladera is not the usual one in high schools. This academic year, the Ministry of Education has made it possible for all public Infant and Primary schools to have a canteen service and is working to consolidate it. However, when students reach secondary school (ESO), the service ceases to be common and each school resolves the midday period in a different way. "Would it be ideal for everyone to have a canteen? Yes, it would be ideal. I think so as a person and as a principal," says Blanco.

The reality is unequal. According to data from the study High school cafeterias as midday spaces, prepared by the Alimentant el Futur Network, 7 high schools offer a daily dish service and 17 centers offer healthy snacks, although in many cases this second option is marketed as a snack and not as a regular lunch service. Furthermore, six CEIPIESO (school-institutes) allow ESO students to continue using the usual school canteen, while in Mallorca only three high schools have authorization for their students to go eat at the canteen of a nearby primary school.

Wherever there is an option for lunch, students use it. The study also points out that 51.4% of students in centers with a midday offer stay for lunch: 20.8% do so every day and 37.5% some days a week. Conversely, among the high schools that do not offer this service, 23.9% of students say they would stay if there were one. The research analyzed 40 of the 68 high schools with cafeterias in the Balearic Islands and collected responses from 667 students, 451 professionals, 17 AFA boards (Associations of Families), and 9 concessionary companies.

For Miquel Àngel Guerrero, director of the Technical Office of FAPA Mallorca, these data help to question whether the arrival at Secondary school makes the need for a service that is fully integrated in Primary school disappear. At IES Josep Sureda i Blanes, about twenty students use the dining hall because the school wanted to provide continuity to the service of the Rafal Vell school. "The kids who ate in the dining hall in Primary school, what happens when they reach Secondary school? Do students stop eating?", he poses. Blanco, for his part, considers that having a dining hall in high schools would be a desirable option, but the high school buildings, often old, are not always prepared to install a kitchen and a service like those in Primary school. The question, therefore, is not only if there is demand, but also what possibilities each center has to provide a response.

The aid that does not arrive

The Ministry has attempted to cover part of this gap with food aid. During the 2025-2026 academic year, up to 13,194 students in Infant, Primary, Secondary (ESO), Basic Vocational Training (FPB), and transition to adult life received canteen or food aid. Of these, only 275 received specific food aid, also designed to facilitate access to a snack or a daily dish for Secondary students. However, for aid to work, it must first be known and requested. According to the cafeteria study, 85.7% of the students and 97.1% of the participating teachers were unaware of these grants focused on high school students. The IES Quartó de Portmany is an example of this: only three families receive them, even though the center believes there could be many more.

"School canteens are a topic we have never addressed in Secondary Education in Ibiza," explains the director of the IES Quartó de Portmany and president of the Secondary School directors of the Pityusic Islands, Francisco Tienda. The institute works primarily with aid for breakfasts and snacks, while situations of greater vulnerability are also referred to Social Services. The director describes students who return home and eat lunch all alone, who have to resolve their lunch on their own, or who do not always eat what has been left prepared for them. He has also detected cases of students who restrict their food due to issues related to body image and bullying. These are situations that the center is aware of and resolves, but has not quantified.

In Palma, the study places the proportion of adolescents who have experienced or are experiencing food insecurity at 40.4%. 8.7% live in situations considered serious, in which the quantity, quality, or variety of food may be affected, leading to skipping meals or going an entire day without eating. The data corresponds to adolescents in Palma and does not allow for extrapolating the situation to the Balearic Islands as a whole, but it helps to provide context to a reality that schools also detect.

The majority of high school students eat lunch at home, according to the study: 92.1%. But almost one in four does so all alone and 30% habitually resort to pre-cooked foods or sandwiches. The place where the meal is eaten does not explain in itself the conditions under which it is eaten. For a family with economic difficulties, having access to a canteen can be a way to guarantee a meal; for another, returning home may mean that the student eats alone or has to prepare something for themselves.

A transcendental stage

Nutritionist Nieves Pérez emphasizes the vital moment these students are in. "Nutrition is important for everyone, but even more so in a body that doubles in size at a certain stage, which is creating tissue and material," she explains. In secondary school, adolescents are more autonomous in deciding what they eat and have at their disposal an offer of products that do not always equate to a complete meal.

In the cafeterias of the high schools studied, sandwiches represent 43.6% of the products and pastries, 36.3%. 69.7% of the management teams consider that this offer does not promote healthy habits. Likewise, a cafeteria with a healthier offer is still not a dining hall with a first course, main course, and dessert for the student who needs to stay there for lunch. And food aid does not reach those who do not know about it or cannot manage to process it.

The students, meanwhile, continue to move from Primary to Secondary school with the same basic needs. Some are 11 or 12 years old when they enter high school. Some will continue to have lunch with their family; others will do so alone or will not eat anything. Some will have a dish within reach and others will have to fend for themselves. What changes when they reach compulsory secondary education (ESO) is not that they stop needing lunch. In fact, they are at an age of being, in general, hungrier. What changes is that the school canteen ceases to be a habitual and compensatory response to inequalities.