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School canteens need shake-up
09 February 2011.
Victorian primary schools breaching the state’s healthy canteen guidelines by selling junk food to students and failing to provide access to healthy food and drink choices should be named to encourage compliance, AMA Victoria President Dr Harry Hemley said today.
"The rising rate of obesity in children and young people is very worrying, with one in four Victorian children now overweight or obese," he said. "It’s important to establish healthy eating habits early on, and school canteens have a role in this process."
As of October last year 321 of Victoria’s 1787 primary schools were not complying with Victoria’s healthy canteen guidelines to make it easy for students to choose healthy snacks and meals and offer a variety of nutritious foods.
Under the guidelines, schools should restrict food high in fat, sugar and salt and enforce a ban soft drinks and confectionery which has been in place since 2009.
"We need to make sure primary school students have access to healthy food and drink choices in their school canteens," Dr Hemley said. "Equally, we need to help these students make the right food choices by reducing the availability of foods high in sugar, fat and salt."
Dr Hemley said Education Minister Martin Dixon needed to increase the transparency around school canteens by naming schools that were not complying with the healthy canteen guidelines and outline a solution.
"Parents deserve to know what their children are eating and what they have access to in their school canteen," he said. "If their school canteen isn’t up to scratch, I’m sure parents will want to know why."
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