Student nutrition still a worry

A local Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) is still concerned about the nutritional value of foods being offered for sale at many of this country’s schools.

Chief Executive Officer of the Heart and Stroke Foundation Michelle Daniel said while improvements had been noted in some schools, the implementation of a National School Nutrition Policy would safeguard future generations.

“There have been improvements, because some schools, whether or not they are model schools have made changes, whether they have minimized or switched out certain items,” Daniel told Barbados TODAY.

“We have seen progress, we have seen changes and as I said, some of the schools have reached out. We want to ensure that people can continue to have their livelihoods, but what we are saying is that the changes have to be made for health. It is not anything else other than ensuring that we have a healthy nation, healthy people and healthy children. We are not passing judgement, it’s just that changes need to be made in order for changes to be seen,” she added.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation in collaboration with the Barbados Childhood Obesity Prevention Coalition had been pushing the National School Nutrition Policy relentlessly up until 2020 when the pandemic struck.

There are currently six “model schools” under the childhood obesity prevention programme and according to Daniel, other learning institutions have been engaged in promoting healthier foods in schools.

The NGO executive said the school nutrition policy would promote consistency across the board and give schools a “concrete framework for action”.

“That will guide what happens in schools, how children are marketed to, what foods are sold and kind of create an environment, because it is about over consumption,” said Daniel.

“When the respective ministries and the Cabinet get to that stage and that is passed, then that really provides a really strong and concrete framework for all of the parties that need to actually function, whether it is the principals, the vendors, the Ministry of Education, the National Nutrition Centre, the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the Ministry of Agriculture etcetera.

“You will hear us asking a lot about children because we have to ensure that they have the best options for their nurturing and nutrition so that they can grow up to be healthier adults as they will be the ones who will be looking after us as we get older and they will be running the country. We want to make sure as far as we are able to have healthy persons being able to function effectively and safely because they would have been taking care of their health from an early age,” she added.

Daniel noted that activities like physical education, which may have fallen off over the years, ought to be mandatory throughout the school system once again. She added that package labelling is another area of focus for the foundation, to assist consumers with making informed choices.

Weighing in on the recent increase on the ‘sweet drink tax’ from ten per cent to 20 per cent, she said policymakers were going in the right direction. She however added that not every intervention could be written into policy

“In some countries, the taxation levels are as high as 50 per cent and they find that to be very effective, but you have to consider your environment and a number of factors. There’s taxation, there’s continued education, for example if you’re operating in an environment where there is a particular modus operandi or we have a particular acquired taste or this is how we have been socialised, then it cannot be one-size-fits-all. We as an organisation think there are several elements to it, but taxation is definitely one,” said Daniel. (KS)