Education News
Australia puts school canteens on a diet
Jul 7, 2005, 16:13 GMT
Sydney - Canteens in some Australian schools will be banned from serving fatty foods under a plan released Thursday to combat an obesity epidemic that has 30 per cent of children overweight and one in 10 obese.
Authorities in Queensland, Australia's third largest state, will punish state schools whose canteens offer only fatty foods like chips and sausage rolls.
"Many schools have a heavy reliance on the revenue they gain from their tuckshops (canteens), we understand that, which is why we're implementing these initiatives in a phased way," Queensland state Education Minister Anna Bligh said. "We'll be working with every tuckshop to ensure that by July 2006 they have a completely healthy menu, and by January 2007 we'll be introducing sanctions on those tuckshops that fail to comply."
About 85,000 pupils at Queensland's 1,300 state schools use school canteens.
Last year Prime Minister John Howard announced that schools will forfeit extra money from the federal government if they don't make pupils take more exercise. The 116-million-Australian-dollar (81-million-U.S.-dollar) initiative aims to get 150,000 overweight children exercising in school playgrounds after the bell goes.
© dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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