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School meal in Madagascar – www.wfp.org
Why Schools Should Be on the Frontline in Combating Malnutrition
To celebrate International School Meals Day in early March, schools from around the world shared their experiences of school meals. It was fun way for school kids to learn what’s on their plates and on what children the other side of the world will be eating.
However given the depressing regularity of nutritional bad news focusing on obesity or malnutrition perhaps policy makers should be just as excited by school meals and the wider school health and nutrition movement which can provide countries with the tools to tackle this problem.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 42 million infants and young children under 5 are overweight or and this figure is likely to top 70 million by 2025. At the same time, in low and middle income countries, over a fifth of children under 5 are affected by stunting due to poor diets. Often the same children are suffering from the double burden of malnutrition resulting in stunted due to poor diets followed by a higher propensity for obesity later in life.
The need for a coordinated response led the WHO to establish the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity.
Balanced school meals
State of School Feeding, a World Food Programme publication written with the support of the Partnership for Child Development and the World Bank, found that virtually every country in the world provides school feeding at some level. This amounts to around 368 million children sitting down to a meal each school day.
This represents a prime opportunity to provide children with nutritious food and to educate them about the balanced diets. Home Grown School Feedingseeks to provide school meals sourced from local smallholder providers. Rather than relying on imported heavily processed food this reconnects schools with a local and varied food basket.
Read the full article: Food Tank
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