DIABETES NZ PUSHES FOR HEALTHIER FOOD AND DRINKS IN SCHOOLS

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education released a proposal for new regulations in schools that would promote healthy unsweetened drinks for students – and called for submissions. Diabetes NZ responded.

The Ministry’s proposal gave three options for regulation changes.

The weakest was Option 3 – simply a duty on all schools to promote healthy food and nutrition.

The strongest option was Option 2. It was the same as option 3 but with a further duty on all schools to supply only healthy unsweetened drinks to students.

Option 1 was a middle ground. In this option, schools would have a duty to promote healthy food and nutrition but would only be required to supply healthy unsweetened drinks to students in years 1 to 8.

Diabetes NZ urgently advocates for the strongest option: Option 2. However, we believe that even this option doesn’t go far enough and that the food schools provide should be healthy as well – not only the drinks.

OUR SUBMISSION

In our submission, Diabetes NZ wrote: ‘Understanding the importance of eating healthy food and limiting sugar intake is pivotal to improving health outcomes in our community.

‘Education in our primary and secondary schools/kura is often where these life-long lessons begin and schools/kura are an important setting for nutrition intervention as they have the power to influence children’s knowledge and behaviour.

‘It is therefore essential that the schools/kura reflect the positive health messages they espouse with their actions. Teaching the benefits of eating healthy food in the classroom, whilst selling unhealthy food and SSBs (sugarsweetened beverages) on school grounds confuses and undermines the message.’

We went on to say, ‘The research and evidence espousing the benefits of removing unhealthy foods and SSBs from school canteens is irrefutable from a child’s health and well-being perspective. Diabetes NZ supports the removal of SSBs in primary schools but feels the proposed changes to the legislation do not go far enough.

‘Diabetes NZ strongly encourages the Ministry of Education to consider applying the same legislative change to High Schools and adopting a healthy-food-only stance as well.

‘There is a concerning trend of children and young people developing type 2 diabetes in New Zealand and certain ethnicities are at greater risk. Māori, Pacific and Asian people are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than other ethnicities, and often at a younger age.

‘Circumstantial factors can also increase risk such as people living in socio-economically deprived areas. These areas often have retailers near schools promoting cheap unhealthy food which teens buy because their money goes further.

‘If the Ministry of Education legislated against unhealthy food and SSBs in schools, the risk for some of our children developing type 2 diabetes may be reduced.’

Our submission pointed to the evidence in a review commissioned by the Heart Foundation, which showed that nutrition policies and/or guidelines are effective in improving the school food environment and student’s dietary intake at school – and that to be effective these policies must relate to all food consumed on school premises and have the support of school parents and administration.

ONGOING WORK

Diabetes NZ has a long history of advocating for legislation that will make our ‘food environment’ healthier.

In 2018, we made a submission to the Tax Working Group urging a sugar tax on foods – an initiative that has been successful in Brazil, Chile, France, Hungary, Mexico, Taiwan, Thailand, and several countries in the Pacific.

We’ll continue to lobby for these kinds of changes at every opportunity. Advocacy is always long-term work, but change is possible.

We await the Ministry's decision on healthy drinks regulations in schools.

See Diabetes NZ’s full submission to the Ministry of Education at https:// www.diabetes.org.nz/news-andupdate/healthy-food-and-drink-inschools-submission.