Call for more appetising School Meals Department menu as students dump food
By Marlon Madden
With reports that students are dumping government-provided school meals, a concerned Minister in the Ministry of Health and Wellness Dr Sonia Browne has called for a more appealing menu of tastier foods for the island’s schoolchildren.
She also wants parents to be better educated on how to prepare good meals.
Dr Browne said on Thursday that based on interactions with teachers, parents and students, as well as her own observations at several schools in the parish of St Philip since the introduction of the National Schools Nutrition Policy, lunches provided by the School Meals Department were simply unappealing.
“What I have seen – and I know this is a work in progress – is sometimes the food, even to me, does not look very inviting,” she said.
Dr Browne said some students admitted to only eating the fruits provided with the meal or waiting until they leave school to eat because of the texture and taste of what was offered at lunchtime.
Additionally, the minister said, some meal servers reported “high food wastage” and prohibitive costs of preparing other options.
“There are a few schools I visit often and I, for myself, have got to see the children basically dumping food,” Browne told reporters on the sidelines of the opening of the HCC’s Mobilising for 2025 – A Caribbean Civil Society NCD Forum at the Courtyard by Marriott Bridgetown on Thursday.
“One needs to understand that, one, these children are coming from homes with already adjusted palates. So, in my view, we need to start early within the school year, once they enter, to get the palates adjusted. Bearing in mind – and this is as a parent – texture is another important aspect of diet in children. A lot of children don’t like soft stuff; sometimes the colour bothers them. So we need to be in a position where we can make food attractive . . . . Children like pretty and pretty can be as simple as red [bell] peppers in a meal. Children like tasty [food] and presentation is important.”
Efforts to reach officials from the School Meals Department were unsuccessful on Thursday.
However, when Barbados TODAY checked with some teachers from schools in Christ Church and St Michael, it found that students were dumping the meals or refusing to even take them.
They explained that while some changes have been made to incorporate what is being referred to as healthier options, they were not fresh.
“They are using a lot of tinned vegetables, which is not healthy to me,” said one teacher. “Sometimes the meal has no taste or it has too much pepper.”
Dr Browne suggested that one alternative is to “adjust the palate of the older children in a gradual way”.
“So, in my view, rather than pushing a new diet at a child, it should be introduced to the older children a little more gradually so that the decrease in salts and sugars are not noticed,” she said. “The truth is, a lot of the children refuse a lot of the diets because they are just not used to it.”
Dr Browne also wants to see parents helping their children develop a taste for certain foods that are considered healthier options.
“So the other aspect we have to tackle is children before they get to school, which is the whole point of these meetings as well as the School Nutrition Policy – to get the outreach out there to parents to educate them on what is good meals, how to prepare meals, what children may or may not like and how to adjust to suit what they like and their palate,” she said.
The Government’s National School Nutrition Policy, which was designed to address the unhealthy lifestyle of students, many of whom are overweight or obese, took effect in April 2023.
At the time of its implementation by the Ministry of Education, health organisations welcomed it, but some canteen concessionaires and vendors who operate near schools complained that it was rushed and should have been implemented in phases.
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