KEY POINTS:
Healthy-food campaigners test public patience to the utmost when they advocate prohibition. Few question the substance of what they are saying but many are affronted by their stridency. Campaigns risk instant knock-back when, as over the past few years, they press for the banning of junk-food advertisements aimed at children, or the prohibiting of some food from school tuck shops. On the latter point, however, there has been success, with the Government ruling that the sale of unhealthy food will be effectively banned on school premises from next June. The cries of "nanny state" have, quite predictably, been quick to surface.
Many critics will see this as the Government yet again exercising its regulatory itch. "Bureaucratic meddling in school management," was the verdict of the National Party education spokeswoman, Katherine Rich. But this response took insufficient notice of both the seriousness of the obesity epidemic and many schools' contradictory approach to it. It makes no sense for students to be taught good nutrition and healthy eating as part of the health curriculum and then, immediately afterwards, to queue at a tuck shop that serves mainly pies or other fatty, sugar- or salt-laden food.
Some schools have recognised the ambivalence of this and have started to introduce healthier options. But the Government's intention to prohibit unhealthy food in tuck shops, announced last September, must have been reinforced by a Green Party survey that showed 84 per cent of 50 schools surveyed still sold pies, hotdogs, sausage rolls or hot bites. There was no fruit on the menu of almost half of the schools, and fewer were offering rolls and sandwiches than a year previously.
From next June, schools will have to abide by Health Ministry food and beverage guidelines that will emphasise the selling of healthy foods. The Education Review Office will police the initiative, tagging schools that do not conform.
The underlying motivation is an epidemic that currently sees 10 per cent of children classified as obese and 21 per cent as overweight. This problem will, inevitably, flow through to public health system costs in the coming years.
Nobody should pretend that healthier tuck shop food is more than a small part of the solution to obesity. As critics have pointed out, pupils will still be able to obtain pies and so on from neighbouring shops. Yet that is no argument for schools supplying this food as well. Likewise, children may eat healthy food at school but be served meals at home that bear no relation to satisfactory nutrition. The benefit of the food supplied at school will dip steeply if it is not part of a good overall diet. Responsibility for that lies largely with the family.
Nonetheless, it is reasonable to expect schools to set an example of healthy eating for all of society. They should offer food and drink that are affordable and agreeable, as well as nutritious. This may or may not have an impact on other people's behaviour. The adult rate of obesity has more than doubled over the past 30 years, and the healthy-eating message has proved a hard one to sell for some time now. The school is one area where the Government can intervene and demand change.
Clearly, there must be other strands to the assault on obesity, many of which focus on lifestyle as much as diet. Parents must be educated and informed, and be prepared to encourage their children to be more physically active. Moving more is an integral part of avoiding obesity. But so, too, is eating better. Schools should be doing everything possible to get that message across.
