School Lunch

More and more students in primary and middle schools in big cities are provided lunches either made by the school canteen or catering 1 companies. School lunches save the parents a great deal of effort, but are they nutritious 2? Do students like them?

Our reporter Yajie has the story.

 

The first seminar on "Nutrition Intervention 3 and Management in Schools" was held recently in Liaoning province. Based on research reports, many experts have noticed that the kids in big cities are going into two different directions: 30 per cent of the children are suffering from obesity 4, while some are as thin as a bean sprout 5. Experts say that unbalanced eating habits are the main causes, and school lunches in primary and middle schools has plenty of room for improvement.

Hao Qingtang, a nutrition expert, says most of the primary and middle schools lack nutrition awareness 6 when they prepare lunches for the students.

"There is a national nutrition index for school lunches indicating the proportions of vegetables and meat. But only 50 per cent of primary and middle schools in Liaoning province meet the national nutrition requirements. Most of the schools provide lunches according to a menu rather than nutrition requirements."

Experts say a balanced lunch should provide 40 per cent of the energy a person needs for one day. And It's extremely important for primary and middle school students who are still growing and have a heavy study burden.

Hao Qingtang says about 80 per cent of the parents lack nutrition knowledge.

"The big problem is that some of the parents don't know about nutrition. They don't know what and how much they should give their child to eat. They think it's good for the kids to eat as much as possible, and they believe meat is another name for nutrition. They make dishes according to their preference rather than the nutrition they need."

Actually children have the basic knowledge about what a balanced meal should have.

"A nutritious meal should have meat and vegetables. If you want to keep healthy, you have to eat less meat and more vegetables."

"A balanced meal should have a lot of things."

But knowing is one thing, doing is another thing. Kids still prefer tasty snacks made by the stalls rather than a school lunch. Some of them even make an exercise out of being fussy 7 about food.

In some western countries, school lunches are designed by professional nutritionists and given to the students for free. Take Japan for example, it laid down a law on nutrition and nutritionists in 1947 and 1952 respectively. All the Japanese students have to attend nutrition class at a young age. Yang Yi, a nutritionist says most of the Japanese students know what nutritious food is and what is good for their health.

"that's the reason why when we compare the Chinese kids with their Japanese peers today, the Japanese kids are much taller and have better physical states."

Although it's important for the parents, it's important for children as well as schools to improve nutrition awareness, it's difficult to put it into practice.

It needs financial support from the government as well as the program reform in primary and middle schools. But given that the issue is related to kids' health, it's certainly worth making an effort to change the way our children eat both at home and school.

For CRI, I'm Yajie.