Junk Food BanFalkirk East MSP Cathy Peattie says junk food will soon be banned in local schools. Ambitious plans to build on Scotland’s success in improving school meals were published this week in a consultation paper – Improving the Health and Nutrition of Scotland’s Children. “School meals have been transformed in recent years,” said Cathy, “and it is already having a positive effect on the health of our young people. The Hungry for Success Initiative has put real ingredients back into school meals and taken fat and sugar out. “The consultation paper contains ambitious proposals to further improve diet for children and adults. Among the proposals are powers to allow councils to provide nutritious snacks and introduce a system which would anonymise free school meal entitlement, removing the stigma and encouraging uptake. “The new proposals would place a duty on local schools to become health promoting environments and make health promotion a central purpose of schooling.” Other proposals include ensuring that all food and drinks provided by schools meet tough nutritional standards, and offering parents advice on healthy packed lunches. “If anyone want to take part in the consultation, they can use the Scottish Executive website, or simply contact my office for more information” Ends This consultation will run until July 31, 2006. The Bill will be ready for presentation to Parliament in Autumn 2006. Hungry for Success introduced nutritional standards for school meals. Primary schools had to meet these from December 2004. Secondary schools have until December 2006. The Executive has provided £135 million funding to local authorities to implement Hungry for Success. The Scottish Executive's policies to improve health have received endorsements from the World Health Organisation and the European Commission as the example for other countries to follow. |
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