The ‘Healthy School Lunch’ project (PPS Een gezonde schoollunch - TKI AF-16098) aimed to study the feasibility and impact of offering a healthy school lunch in Dutch primary schools. In the first phase of the project we studied the support for a healthy school lunch among a wide range of stakeholders and we explored what they thought a healthy school lunch should look like. The next phase aimed to study the effects of a healthy school lunch on dietary intake and cognitive performance. In order to investigate the effects of providing a healthy school lunch on the dietary intake of children during lunch, a longitudinal intervention study with three schools was designed, where a healthy school lunch was offered for six months. Due to various financial and methodological reasons that were not fully considered when starting this project, it was not possible to combine the dietary intake and cognition study in the school lunch intervention. Instead, we explored the possibilities and requirements to perform a solid experimental cross-over study on the effects of a healthy school lunch on cognitive performance within the Healthy School Lunch Project. This process is described in the current report. We started with a review of the literature on the effects of a healthy school lunch on cognitive performance of children. Studies on the immediate and transient effects of a healthy school lunch versus skipping lunch showed, on a variety of cognitive measures, small and inconsistent effects on alertness and working memory of children. Studies on the long-term effects of a healthy school lunch versus habitual lunch showed small improvements in concentration and language processing ability of children. Given the restriction that long term effects of a school lunch on cognitive performance could not be examined within the scope of this project, the focus shifted to understanding immediate effects. A well-designed study to capture immediate effects of a healthy school lunch on cognitive performance of children within our project ...