KEY POINTS:
It's hard to understand why nobody in the Beehive predicted - and moved to avoid - the public reaction to the healthy food guidelines for schools that were promulgated last week.
The guidelines require school canteens and tuck shops to stock only healthy food, putting an end to the culture of fat-laden pies, chips and sausage rolls that have constituted lunch for generations of Kiwi kids. It is part of a multi-pronged attempt to address soaring rates of childhood obesity and consequent epidemics of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in years to come.
The announcement, from the office of Education Minister Steve Maharey, came in the form of changes to National Administration Guidelines which form part of each school's charter, and have to be implemented from June 1 next year. Even the guidelines' extremely unfortunate acronym, NAG, should have rung warning bells.
This Government has a public image that it is far too fond of telling people what is good for them. The smokefree legislation, a spectacular success in public health terms, was an initiative whose time had certainly come, but it cemented the phrase "nanny state" in public discussion. Sue Bradford's proposal to remove the defence available under law to parents who beat their children, while equally laudable, also did serious damage to the Government's image: talkback lines and editors' mailbags were choked with people outraged at being told how to raise their own children. So the effort to put in place new menus at school tuck shops needed to be very carefully managed to ensure that it did not further raise public ire.
In fact, the tone of the guidelines is far less prescriptive than reports have suggested. They are "not about banning particular food and drinks" but rather suggest that "schools could consider selling pies or sausage rolls occasionally, and sandwiches and fruit every day".
Flexibility, in other words, is the key, but the fact that schools will have to account to the Education Review Office for the steps they are taking to implement the guidelines, suggests that if the carrot does not work, the stick may be deployed.
But no one should forget that changes in diet are only part of the answer.
Increasing rates of child obesity are the result of a complicated combination of social changes: kids run around less than they used to because of the proliferation of electronic entertainments and modern parental paranoia about letting them roam far and wide. Meanwhile, research clearly shows that fast food outlets (and obesity) are disproportionately found in poorer areas. Given that many kids have already signalled they will shun the sushi and salad at school and head to the dairy for a pie, it's hard to see the new guidelines having an impact where it is most needed.
The appetite for bad food is rooted in more than its availability. Policy changes need to take account of that. And they need to be implemented in ways that will not alienate the constituencies they need to persuade.
