Provincial School
Nutrition Policies
and Food Security
By
Mary McKenna
University of New Brunswick
January 2013
Overview
• Evidence on school nutrition
programs
• School nutrition policy
• Policy comparisons
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Access to food
Pricing
Local foods
Food marketing
• Organizations that fund school
nutrition programs
Evidence
• School nutrition programs have been found wanting*:
– As an instrument of social policy and for reducing inequities
– In trying to feed hungry children in a non-stigmatizing manner
– As an area of potential investment by the Canadian federal
government, which regards such services as provincial/territorial
jurisdiction exclusively
– In terms of providing unequivocal strong evidence that they have
an important positive effect on children’s learning
*Canadian context – no discussion of role of such programs in other countries
Evidence
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Improve likelihood of eating breakfast
Assist with meeting nutrition requirements
Improve dietary status
Increase vegetable and fruit consumption
Improve health
– improve weight status and serum cholesterol
• Improve school performance
• Improve attendance and on-time arrival at school
• There exists no “safe” level of inadequate nutrition for healthy, growing
children. Even nutritional deficiencies of a relatively short duration – a
missed breakfast, an inadequate lunch – impair children’s ability to
function and learn. Brown, Beardslee, Prowthrow-Stith, 2008
School Nutrition Policy
• Framework to guide school planning,
implementation, and evaluation pertaining to
student nutrition and health
– Promote norms
– Reflect national dietary guidance
– Consider cultural and dietary practices
Type of School Nutrition Policy
Province
Policy
AL
Recommended guidelines
QC
Provincial guidelines for recommended board action
MN
Provincial guidance on required district policies
SK
Provincial guidance on required district policies
NS
Provincially required policy and recommended guidelines
NL
Provincially required policy
NB
Provincially required policy
ON
Provincially required policy
BC
Provincially required policy
PE
In transition (from required district policies)
Components of Provincial SNP’s
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Nutrition standards and food facilities/outlets
Meal scheduling/eating environments
Food intake of staff
Nutrition education/information
Nutrition training of staff/volunteers
Family/community involvement
Food safety
Food rewards/punishment
Special events/celebrations
Fundraising
Monitoring
Nutrition committee
Access to Food
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Manitoba
Saskatchewan
Nova Scotia
New Brunswick
(Ontario)
Prince Edward Island
Access to Food: MN
• School policies can address breakfast or snack programs to
ensure no child goes hungry (p. 34).
– Breakfast programs should be open to all students, but should not
encourage students to replace breakfasts normally eaten at home
(Annapolis Valley Regional School Board).
Access to Food: SK
• School meal programs and/or emergency food are available
to ensure that all students have access to nutritious food in
school.
• A community of caregivers, school staff, students and/or
local business partners advocate and implement strategies
for addressing food security. Examples include community
kitchens, the “Good Food Box” and community gardens.
Local foods are purchased as often as possible.
Access to Food: NS
• Students who may be Vulnerable
– All students need nourishment during the school day.
Some students may be challenged in meeting this need
for a variety of reasons including poverty, life-threatening
food allergies, and other medical conditions requiring
special dietary considerations (DIR, p. 3).
• Schools will ensure that students and parents are aware of
breakfast, lunch, and snack programs that are offered in or
through the school at minimal or no cost and are accessible to all
students
• Schools must ensure that any food programs are made available
to students in a non-stigmatizing manner (p. 6)
Access to Food: NB
• Food Services
– Breakfast and hot lunch programs will be consistent with the
<Healthier Foods and Nutrition in Public Schools> policy (p. 3).
• Guidelines/Recommendations
– Schools and school community partners should encourage parent/s
guardians to provide a healthy breakfast and healthy foods at home
(p. 4).
Access to Food: ON
• NOTE: The standards do NOT apply to food and beverages
that are offered in schools to students at no cost
– Requirement: school boards must ensure that students have access
to drinking water during the school day (p. 4)
Access to Food: PE
• The Board and administrators will improve student access to
food by:
– Improving access by all students to healthy, safe,
reasonably priced, attractively presented food choices:
and
– Reducing hunger among children living with food
insecurity, through enhanced access to healthy foods
within the school setting, provided in a non-stigmatizing
manner.
• Western School District School Nutrition Policy
Access to Food: PE
• All schools will continue to participate in and promote the
PEI School Milk Program
• All schools are encouraged to stock an emergency food
cupboard with healthy choices for students in need
• Schools are encouraged to provide breakfast or snack
programs when a need is identified, which will: be open to
all students but will not be promoted as a replacement for
breakfast eaten at home; and will follow Best Practice
Standards from Breakfast for Learning.
– Eastern and Western School District School Nutrition Policies
Pricing
• AL: healthier food choices are competitively priced relative
to less nutritious foods
• Affordable healthy meal choices should be a priority over
affordable healthy snacks
• SK: Healthy foods are reasonable priced and readily
available in the school (e.g., cafeteria, canteen)
• MN: School policies can influence the appropriate pricing,
promotion and advertising of nutritious food (p. 33)
– (e.g., Support healthy food choices by providing affordable, nutritious
food (Annapolis Valley Regional School Board).
Pricing
• NS: The cost of food and beverages influences whether or
not they are chosen. School food and beverages should be
served and sold primarily for the purposes of providing
nutrition rather than for revenue generation (DIR, p. 2).
• NB: Foods with maximum and moderate nutritional value
sold in school will be priced as close to cost as practicable
(p. 2).
• BC: Price is the most important factor in helping students
make healthier choices. A decreased profit margin on
healthier products can be compensated by raising the prices
of less healthy products during the transition to full
implementation of the Guidelines (p. 24)
Pricing
• PE: Schools will support healthy food choices by pricing
approaches which encourage students to choose healthy
foods over less healthy foods when food is sold at school.
Local Foods
• AL: Identify vendors, farmers and businesses that can
provide Alberta-grown produce or other healthful products at
affordable prices (P.53)
• NS: Whenever possible, schools and food service providers
should use food and beverages that are grown, produced,
or manufactured in Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada (GUI,
p. 10)
• NL: . . . many foods such as local vegetables and
wholesome homemade meals . .. do not have a Nutrition
Facts table. These items can be very healthy choices (p.
28)
• ON: Offer, when available and where possible, food and
beverages that are produced in Ontario (consideration, p. 4)
Food Marketing
• AL: Market healthier food choices with positive sign
associations such as a message displayed where milk is
sold, ‘milk builds strong bones and teeth!’ (p. 54)
• AL: Teachers and student councils can work together on
marketing campaigns that promote healthy food choices (p.
56)
• NS: Promotion and Advertising: Partnerships between
schools and business . . .work best when designed to meet
identified health and educational needs rather than serve
commercial motives (DIR p. 2).
Food Marketing
• NB: School administrators, all staff and school community
partners should promote the consumption of foods with
maximum nutritional value on school premises (p. 4).
• BC: Implementation: Develop and implement marketing
mechanisms to further encourage healthy choices (e.g.,
making healthier choices more plentiful, more visible and
less expensive, compared to their less healthy
counterparts). P. 6)
Food Marketing
• PE: Schools will work to develop an environment
that promotes healthy eating by:
– Promoting and/or advertising only healthy food choices
– Not accepting advertising of food products for unhealthy
food choices
– Displaying attractive current promotional materials
related to healthy eating throughout schools
• Eastern School District School Nutrition Policy (p. 95)
Other Policies . . .
• NL: Eating Healthier in Newfoundland and Labrador
• Target: increase the percentage of schools which provide
support to disadvantaged children through subsidized
feeding programs (p. 50).
• NB: Throne Speech, 2012:
• Your government has committed to promoting local
community food products to residents, visitors and
businesses as part of its strategy to grow the Value-Added
Food sector. Your government will build on this effort with
initiatives to promote the benefits of healthy food choices.
Opportunities
• Work with P/T partners and others to compile and identify
better practice comprehensive nutrition policies that address
all facets of school nutrition, including access to food,
pricing, local foods and food marketing.
• Ensure that pertinent policy information is consistent and
easily accessible to user groups.
• Provide guidelines and support for implementation and
monitoring of each aspect.
Organizations that Fund School
Nutrition Programs
• Compilation of national charities; provincial, territorial, and
large municipal government and charitable groups that fund
school nutrition programs
– Program reach and summary
– Funding information
– Monitoring activities
– Contact information
(Total budget, opinions of program leaders)
Programs
• National Charities
• Provincial/territorial government programs
– Multiple funding agencies (e.g., Education, Children and Youth
Services, Health, Agriculture, Wellness)
– Maybe more than one program per province/territory
– May be nutrition-specific or part of a larger program
• Provincial/territorial charities
– Government and/or privately funded
• Municipal governments
• Municipal charities
• Industry-sponsored
– Subsidized milk programs
BC School Fruit and Vegetable
Nutritional Program
• Program location
• Program summary
• Number of programs
• Grant size
• Further information
• British Columbia
• Provides fresh fruits and
vegetables to K-12 public
schools and First Nations
schools every other week
for 13 weeks per school year
• > 1300 schools and
> 433,000 students
• Provision of ready-to-eat
produce
• http://www.sfvnp.ca/
Kids Eat Smart Newfoundland and
Labrador
• Program location
• Program summary
• Number of programs
• Grant size
• Further information
• Newfoundland and Labrador
• Provides breakfast, lunch, or
snack programs to K-12 school
children
• > 200 Kids Eat Smart Clubs
Approximately 19,000 children
participate; approximately
52,000 have access to programs
• Assessed on an individual basis
• http://www.kidseatsmart.ca/
Observations
• Programs are heavily dependent on volunteers
– Over 9500 volunteers in the BC and NL examples
• Charitable model may result in less control over nutritional
quality of food donations
• Time spent on sustaining programs competes with time
spent on program content
• Potential competition among programs may detract from
primary mandate
• Programs may include educational and other components
• Convictions are deeply rooted
– It shouldn’t be sustainable but programs continue to operate
Challenges to Sustainability
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Access to adequate resources
Vulnerability to loss of funding
Changes in priorities for funding sources
Increasing number of families in need
Community indifference or unawareness of local need
• Strong partnerships between the school and the community,
including parents, funding agencies, and other stakeholders,
are vital to the long-term sustainability of programs
– http://www.usask.ca/cuisr/docs/pub_doc/health/Henryetal.pdf
• Saskatchewan, 2006
Potential “Value-Added” of School
Nutrition Programs
• Are such programs desirable independent of their potential
role as instruments of social policy?
• School food as a ‘micro-climate’ for comprehensive school
health actions
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Student leadership
Environmental sustainability
Consumption of local foods
Cultural diversity
Socialization
Nutrition and health education
Policy education
Awareness of food marketing
Questions
• Are programs adequately addressing the concerns about
their value:
– More evidence is required to adequately assess the contribution these
programs can make to (without creating adverse consequences such as
dependency or stigmatization)
• Alleviate hunger
• Enhance nutrition
• Contribute to healthy child development
– Opportunities for increased monitoring and evaluation and sharing
of results
• Individual programs
• Cross-program processes and outcomes
Opportunities
• Recognize the growing number of programs, their variety,
and the basis on which they operate
• Acknowledge the collective experience within these
programs, their potential as partners, and their reach within
schools
• Dialogue and share to better understand current practices,
challenges, tensions, and needs within the field
• Identify strategic opportunities to contribute to healthy eating
for all Canadian school children
What do we want for our children?
• Mary McKenna mmckenna@unb.ca
• Tel: 506-451-6872