WASHINGTON — For the first time, video cameras will monitor Fairfax County, Va., high school cafeterias this fall to keep students from pilfering chicken wraps or veggie burgers in the lunch line.

The school system — the largest in the Washington, D.C., region — is turning to video surveillance, already widely used on school buses and outside school buildings, to combat what officials say has become a pervasive problem: food theft. The Fairfax school system's food and nutrition services department estimated that $1.2 million worth of prepared food was lifted from cafeterias in the past school year.

Board members decided last month that they could no longer swallow such losses, given a $150 million school budget shortfall and rising food prices. They approved a one-year tryout for cafeteria cameras at six schools.

Penny McConnell, director of food and nutrition services, said she hopes the cameras will curb theft and send a message to students that stealing from the cafeteria is no less serious than shoplifting from a store.

"I would hate for them to make this a habit and take it into the community," she said. "They could get themselves into some serious situations that could impact their futures."

Pocketing cookies, paying for one pizza while covering up another or downing a bag of french fries before the line reaches the cashier are common in school cafeterias, although there is little hard data documenting theft, said Erik Peterson, spokesman for the School Nutrition Association, a nonprofit group based in Alexandria, Va. He said a handful of school systems have used cameras, real or pretend, to address the problem.

School food service officials said they to try to limit opportunities to steal by keeping frequently swiped items, such as juice bottles or chips, off open shelves and behind the cashier. Many schools routinely assign staff members to monitor the lunch line.

Employee theft in cafeterias is a more publicized crime. But McConnell said the $1.2 million loss in Fairfax only counts prepared food on the serving line, not food that might have been stolen after hours. The loss total is significant for an annual food department budget of $74 million.

In the past school year, McConnell conducted an anonymous survey of 10,000 high school students during lunch. Almost 9 percent said they had taken food without paying.

Greg Young, 18, who graduated from Annandale High in June, said video cameras would not prevent one of the most common forms of theft he observed: buying food with cafeteria account numbers stolen from other students. "It's very, very easy for that to happen," he said.

Fairfax school cafeterias, which serve about 140,000 student customers in 159 facilities, are called "Energy Zones," and they are marketed like restaurants, with special packaging and offerings similar to those found in a food court, such as panini or wraps. But the price is much lower: For $2.50, high school students can choose among a wide variety of entrees and side dishes.

Most commonly stolen are sandwiches, such as cheeseburgers or ham-and-cheese croissants, because they are individually wrapped and easy to pocket, she said. Other tempting items are cans of juice, fruit, yogurt or "potatoes of any kind" — tater tots, fries or wedges, McConnell said.