Best questions for parent survey about nutrition and cafeteria

Here are some of the best questions for a parent survey about nutrition and cafeteria options, plus tips on how to craft them. We’ve seen firsthand how Specific helps you generate surveys in seconds, ensuring you get detailed, actionable feedback from families.

10 best open-ended questions for parent survey about nutrition and cafeteria

Open-ended questions are your go-to for understanding feelings, motivations, and nuanced opinions—especially when dealing with a topic as personal as food. These questions let parents speak freely about their experiences, which is crucial given that 53% of parents want more control over their children's diets and 49% say kids dislike cafeteria options, leading to lower participation. [1] That context alone shows why it’s so valuable to ask questions that break beyond yes/no.

1. How do you feel about the current nutritional quality of meals served in the cafeteria?

2. Can you describe any changes you’d like to see in the cafeteria menu?

3. What healthy foods do you wish were served more often at school?

4. What concerns, if any, do you have about the food your child eats at school?

5. How do cafeteria meals compare to what your child eats at home?

6. Have you noticed any impact—positive or negative—on your child’s health or behavior based on school lunches?

7. Are there any barriers that prevent your child from enjoying school meals?

8. What would motivate your family to participate more in the school meal program?

9. What feedback has your child shared with you about their cafeteria experience?

10. Is there anything else you’d like the cafeteria staff or school to know about your expectations?

The best single-select multiple-choice questions for parent survey about nutrition and cafeteria

Single-select multiple-choice questions are perfect when you want to quantify issues or start a conversation with simple, quick answers. Sometimes it’s easier for parents to pick from a set of short options before diving deeper—helpful for busy respondents or when you’re pinpointing specific challenges, like the 39% of parents who cited short lunch periods and 29% who flagged lack of healthy options or high costs as major issues. [1]

Here are three strong examples:

Question: Which aspect of the school cafeteria concerns you most?

• Meal nutritional quality

• Menu variety

• Food cost

• Cleanliness

• Lunch period length

• Other

Question: How satisfied are you with the current selection of healthy options in the cafeteria?

• Very satisfied

• Somewhat satisfied

• Neutral

• Somewhat dissatisfied

• Very dissatisfied

Question: How often does your child eat school lunch?

• Every day

• Several times a week

• About once a week

• Rarely

• Never

When to follow up with "why?" Often, a closed-ended answer doesn’t tell you the reasoning. Use a follow-up "why?" if a parent selects "dissatisfied," for instance—ask what specifically drives that feeling. With even one layer of context, you can unlock actionable insights (e.g., “Why are you dissatisfied with the healthy options?”).

When and why to add the "Other" choice? The "Other" option matters when you want to capture anything your preset list left out. If someone selects "Other," a follow-up lets you discover unique challenges or solutions you hadn’t anticipated, leading to unexpected but valuable feedback.

NPS question: How likely are you to recommend the school nutrition program?

The NPS (Net Promoter Score) format is a great way to measure overall parental satisfaction with the nutrition and cafeteria experience. It asks: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our school’s nutrition program to other parents?” Given that 72% of parents rate school meals as “somewhat healthy” or “very healthy,” but this doesn’t always align with the reality of meal quality, NPS can help track sentiment—even as menu changes. [3] It's a straightforward pulse check that can expose gaps between improvement efforts and perception.

Want a ready-to-use template? Try Specific’s NPS survey for parents about nutrition and cafeteria—it adapts follow-ups to promoters, passives, and detractors for richer context.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions turn a simple survey into a real conversation—and deliver clarity. If you skimp on them, answers can be vague, which leads to guesswork. With Specific, automatic AI follow-up questions dive deeper in real time based on a parent’s first answer, just like a skilled interviewer would.

• Parent: “I’m unhappy with the lunch period.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you tell us more about what makes the lunch period challenging for your child?”

How many followups to ask? In most cases, asking 2-3 well-placed follow-ups is enough. You don’t want to tire participants, but you do want context—Specific allows you to set when to move on once you have what you need, striking the right balance.

This makes it a conversational survey—each response feels natural and engaging, mimicking how real conversations unfold instead of box-checking forms.

AI analysis, easy insights: Even with lots of open-ended feedback, it’s simple to analyze survey responses using AI. Instead of wading through piles of unstructured text, you get instant summaries and actionable directions.

Automated follow-ups in surveys are a new game-changer—try creating your own and experience how deep you can go with ease.

How to prompt ChatGPT for creative parent survey questions

Getting great results from ChatGPT or other AI tools starts with the right prompts. Start simple—then add more context for better, more tailored questions. For example, start with:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for parent survey about nutrition and cafeteria.

You’ll get more on-target content if you specify your goals, your audience, and the situation. Here’s how to do it:

You are a school administrator wanting to improve menu satisfaction. Your goal is to gather feedback from parents about current cafeteria options and healthy food availability. Suggest 10 open-ended questions that help us discover key pain points and opportunities to improve.

Next, ask AI to organize:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Once you see the categories—like “nutritional quality”, “cost”, “menu variety”—choose those you want to explore in more depth. Then prompt:

Generate 10 questions for categories menu variety, nutritional quality, and healthy eating preferences.

What is a conversational survey—and why does it matter?

Let’s break it down. A conversational survey doesn’t just ask for feedback—it interacts, adapts, and keeps parents engaged. Old survey forms are rigid: respondents select their options or type a sentence, then move on. With AI-powered conversational surveys, questions and follow-ups change in real time based on the answers, mimicking the flow of a live interview.

Why use AI for parent surveys? Because AI survey generators can adapt questions on the fly, clarify unclear responses, and probe gently when parents mention issues—so you never miss the underlying reasons or new insights. Survey analysis is dramatically faster and more insightful, and you can create your own survey about nutrition and cafeteria with just a prompt.

If you want high participation, richer detail, and surveys that feel welcoming, Specific offers a best-in-class conversational experience for creators and respondents—no coding, minimal effort, and genuine conversations.

See this nutrition and cafeteria survey example now

See how these survey questions and AI-powered follow-ups deliver deep, meaningful feedback—get started and take the pulse of your community with confidence.