School: a place to ensure health and nutrition

In my previous post, I came to address the role of public schools in ensuring food security for the population of six to fourteen year olds, which corresponds to nine years of basic education during which time every child attending public school is entitled to at least one full meal daily. So, if you follow my previous logic and also use the schools during the holidays to offer a daily meal for students who need it, it is in fact possible to eradicate hunger permanently at least for this age group of the population. 

However, not everything that seems so simple is indeed so - it should be, but unfortunately is not. This is because the mere fact of offering food does not guarantee that children eat it; in addition to providing food at school, it is essential that is offered in decent conditions and also the school, which local society has chosen to teach our children, not offer mixed signals with regard to dietary habits. 

Unfortunately, most of the Brazilian public and private schools do provide neither the first nor the second. Starting with the latter: while schools that house cafeterias, which almost universally offer food harmful to health (for example fried foods, sweets, stuffed biscuits and crisps  - all of which are very attractive to children’s tastes) and that compete with food offered by the schools which is usually prepared by nutritionists to offer balanced meals according to the physiological needs of children served by a particular school, we are denying the possibility of contributing to the nutritional education of new generations, reducing current and future expenditure with the health system  and guaranteeing these children’s food security. The question of being able to eat with dignity in school, in my opinion, goes through three key issues – to take the time, space and form needed for this purpose. In the schools my children go to (state and municipal) they are offered the daily meal during break which is not only a very short time (20 minutes) in order to feed themselves and to digest (for comparison, workers are entitled to an hour for lunch). Also, in educational terms, it equates in importance the act of eating with the act of playing - and in many schools they end up being alternatives for one another – either one does one or the other. In order to eat with dignity, it is essential to have a clean room furnished with tables and chairs or benches as well as plates and cutlery to serve as a school refectory (it does not have to fit all students simultaneously because students can eat in shifts). Nowadays, especially when children reach 10 or 11 years old, they really care about their appearance and especially their clothes and so prefer not to eat even when hungry to avoid having to sit down on the ground to eat or to eat standing up thus running the risk that another child who is playing in the courtyard knocks into them and dirties their clothes. Finally, once we understand that the act of eating at school can, and for me, should be considered as part of the educational process, it becomes part of the teachers' day to eat at the same table and at the same time as their students.