The new rules from the provincial government to get children eating healthier foods at schools come with a large number of complications.
The Upper Grand District School Board’s communications officer Maggie McFadzen said in an interview last week that officials will be heading to seminars in February to learn some of the implications of the changes in regulations that must be implements by September 2011.
Meanwhile, Director of Education Don Drone, of the Wellington Catholic District School Board, is hopeful that changes already made will take care of most of the new restrictions.
The new rules are: Candy, energy drinks, and fried foods will no longer be sold in schools. In addition, 80 per cent of new school menus must include products with highest levels of essential nutrients and lowest amounts of fat, sugar and sodium. That includes fresh fruit, vegetables and whole grain breads. Further, 20 per cent of the new menu may include products that have slightly higher amounts of fat, sugar, and sodium. Those could include bagels and cheese.”
There are numerous implications. McFadzen said there are vending machines in some schools, local high schools all have their own cafeterias, with some supplying their own foods and others getting food provided by contractors, and some schools bring food into schools for such things as pizza day and hot dog lunches.
She said the first thing to note is the board has no jurisdiction over lunches brought from home. The board can encourage healthy lunches but cannot ban anything outright. That includes such things as peanut butter, which can cause severe reactions is some students.
McFadzen pointed out, “Some [parents] say, ‘Peanut butter is the only thing my kid will eat,’ ” so it cannot be banned outright, even while it is discouraged.
“It’s a fine line,” she admitted, but added that the requests to parents to restrict peanut butter have been around for a while, and it is “something people have grown into.”
She added the school board can only suggest to parents, “When making lunches, be careful about what goes into it.”
Then there are the special programs.
She said some schools hold pizza days, with that food brought in from outside. Those treats will now have to meet the new guidelines. In other cases, programs such as Food and Friendship, run in Guelph to ensure all kids have enough to eat, but there will now be restrictions on what they can provide.
McFadzen and Drone have differing views on how the laws will be enforced and treated. Drone said he thinks occasional treat days with pizza and hot dogs might be permitted, if they are not a regularly-occurring event.
“It’s early,” he said of the process. “It may be permissable if its not offered every day. It’s part of the whole education process for us.”
McFadzen can foresee some complexities in the new rules.
For example, there are many bake sale fundraisers. Students in grades 7 and 8 often hold them, but, if the food is sold on school property, she believes it will have to meet the guidelines. If it is sold off school property, the food does not have to meet them. The same goes for parent councils. Sales off school property are okay, but the new food guidelines must be met at school.
That means parents who bake for such projects, or help their children to do that, are going to have to ask themselves, “How do I figure out, when my brownies are done, how much fat, what type of transfat, and how much sugar” is in them, said McFadzen.
Then there are such things as chocolate covered almonds for sale. They will not be allowed to be sold in schools, but McFadzen said students can sell them door to door – off school property.
There is one exception there, too. “You can sell it in the staff room.”
McFadzen said school officials have other issues, too. For example, if they cannot sell regular softdrinks from vending machines, can they sell sugar-free softdrinks? And, she said, that might depend on “how people feel about aspartame” the sweetener in those diet drinks.
Drone agreed that the changes in the law will create a strong need for study so they can be met.
“The questions,
McFadzen said, “I don’t know how this is all going to play out. We still have a lot of questions.”
She said she hopes those will be answered next month during the training sessions.
Drone added, “We will comply,” and added that the school will have to work with school and parent councils.
But, he said, people in the past few years have become more aware of unhealthy foods, and that will help.
“It’s going to take time to change people’s attitudes,” he said. “People are much more aware. I think it’s a matter of how far you go.”
