Higher-income fifth-grade students in suburban school districts are no more likely to have access to healthy or unhealthy foods than are their lower-income, urban peers, according to a new Child Trends study. However, schools attended by higher-income students offer their students a greater selection of both healthy and unhealthy food choices. School Food Unwrapped: What's Available and What Our Kids Actually Are Eating examines the prevalence of vending machines, school stores, and other outlets in elementary schools that often provide non-nutritious foods, the types of food and beverages sold within these outlets, and student consumption of food at school among a nationally representative sample of fifth-grade students.

Among the findings:

» More than half (57.2 percent) of elementary schools report that students can purchase food or beverages through a "competitive outlet" -- vending machines, a la carte items in cafeterias, or school snack bars that offer food that does not have to meet federal nutrition standards.

» The availability of these competitive outlets does not differ by urbanicity, public or private school status, participation in school breakfast or lunch programs, or receipt of Title I funds.

» Suburban elementary schools offer more healthy and more unhealthy food than urban schools; the same is true for schools with lower minority populations compared with higher minority populations, and schools that do not receive Title I funding compared with those that do receive this funding.

» Contrary to popular belief, most of the less healthy purchases are made in school cafeterias rather than from vending machines.