2016-01-29
Patricia Cahill
As an Aussie kid my London primary school had something I had never seen — huge vats of wobbly bright pink, yellow and brown 'custard' to be ladled over every serve of stodgy but oh-so-sweet pudding. Actually there were quite a lot of things on the menu that I had never seen. My parents insisted that school dinners weren't healthy. So I was sent to school with my lunch in a brown paper bag and I couldn't change my mother's mind.
Today as a parent of school-age children I can see my parents' point of view. I understand why Jamie Oliver has made a mission out of improving the nutrition of English school lunches and reducing the amount of sugar children eat. I also know that there is room to improve what we do in Australia. A lunchbox lunch is not necessarily a healthy lunch.
The good news is that many school communities are doing their best to educate students about healthy eating and to reduce both the rubbish in lunchboxes and the rubbish from lunchboxes. The bad news is that school communities are surrounded by an avalanche of junk food marketing targeted at children. Commercial interests are undermining efforts to assist children and their families make good food choices.
There is another important aspect to lunchbox contents. It isn't only about children's health and obesity. There is the growing cost of cleaning and the removal of waste from schools which ends up in landfill. This is an expense schools don't want and can't afford to carry. So 'nude food' days when your child is asked to take an apple or another whole piece of fruit to school are just as much about reducing packaging waste as teaching children that food doesn't have to come in a packet.
School programs where the class with the least packaging in their collective lunchboxes wins points towards a trophy for their class is a win-win for reducing waste to landfill as well as reducing the consumption of poor nutritional value and the after-lunch sugar lows. “If it's in a packet, don't pack it” repeated in the school newsletter can say it all.
The Greens have strong policies to reduce junk food marketing, particularly that targeted at children. Children have the right to healthy food and water to grow their bodies and brains. As a community we can take action that supports families and school communities. Reducing the amount of processed packaged food in lunchboxes improves children's nutrition and reduces the costs of waste removal for schools. It also helps us achieve our goal of zero waste to landfill. School lunchboxes are an important health and environmental issue for our local communities.
Patricia Cahill has a background in urban planning, community consultation and public policy, as well as community volunteer work with families with babies and young children. She is the ACT Greens candidate for the seat of Canberra for the 2016 Federal Election. Patricia tweets @trishcahill
Image by Amanda Quintana-Bowles, CC-BY-ND-2.0