uk school junk food ban

[Guest guest]

UK to announce school junk food ban

 

The UK government will today announce a ban on junk food in the

nation’s schools, bringing an end to the sale of crisps, chocolate

and fizzy drinks in school vending machines.

By Lorraine Heller

28/09/2005

 

The announcement is due to be made this afternoon by education

secretary Ruth Kelly at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

 

The move is part of the government's drive to improve nutrition in

schools by banning all foods with high fat, salt or sugar content

from school meals and vending machines as from next September.

 

Additionally, school caterers will be prevented from serving “low

quality bangers and burgers”, and will only serve two portions of

fried food throughout the school week.

 

“I am absolutely clear that the scandal of junk food served every day

in school canteens must end,” Kelly will say.

 

“We must make a step change in what children eat at school.”

 

The School Meals Review Panel will next week publish a report that

will set out detailed proposals for tough new nutritional standards.

 

With the growing global obesity crisis, nutrition in schools has

recently come into sharp focus.

 

Last month, France banned all vending machines in schools across the

nation.

 

France's food standards body, AFSSA, supported the ban as part of

wider measures. It said in a statement that it was in favour of

banning vending machines to discourage snacking, yet more action was

needed to improve the nutritional value of school meals.

 

In the US, the American Beverages Association, backed by PepsiCo and

Coca-Cola, recently introduced a voluntary ban on all drinks except

water and 100 per cent juice in elementary schools, and all

full-calorie soft drinks in middle schools.

 

Calls for bans on vending machines in schools have still been seen in

some other western nations, including as Ireland, the US and the UK.

Some US states have banned fizzy sodas in middle and elementary

schools, while California has just passed legislation to extend this

ban to high schools.

 

The World Health Organisation says that 22m children under

5-years-old are obese worldwide, while the number of obese children

aged between six and 17 has more than doubled in the last 40 years.

 

The British Medical Association, representing about three quarters of

UK doctors, said that if current trends continue, at least one fifth

of boys and one third of girls in Britain will be obese by 2020.

 

In terms of market value, children's products contribute about

?14-15bn to the overall ?700bn food and drink market in Europe