IT has been said many times that health is wealth and that are the concerns by parents about the unhealthy food sold by in school canteens.
Some school canteens just sells snacks, cold sandwiches, toasted sandwiches, varieties of soft drinks, dairy products and confectioneries. And others sell cooked food as well.
When children are in school, it becomes the responsibility of the school and the operator of the canteen to be equally accountable when it comes to promoting children's health.
Despite having the information at hand, many school canteens continue to sell foods which are classified by many "junk food".
It is very funny that children are taught to keep away from junk food and on the other hand school canteens sell junk food.
Some of these canteens are run by the school committees, some are run by the school management and some are tendered out to private company or individuals.
All these canteens sell things which are on demand so that they can get a maximum return, especially those who are tendered out to be operated by private companies or individuals.
Mostly the focus is on the confectioneries which are classified as junk food as it provides substantial income for the canteen operator.
If it is run by the school, it helps in many ways and if it is run by run by a private operator, he sees that he gets maximum benefits out of the operation as it is his only source of income and also pay for the rent of the canteen to the school.
Everyone involved in the canteen operation wants to benefit from the operation and see that it meets the costs for errands, etc.
It is very unfortunate that canteen operators are not concerned with only promoting healthy food, and accountability. All that matters to them is the profit in monetary values.
These operators treat school canteen as any other business. The concern of many parents is the continued trend by school canteen operators which sell unhealthy food to the children.
It is rather very sad that big and small business houses use schools to promote their junk food products targeting school children who become their victims. The junk foods in the canteens are wrapped in colourful and attractive packaging that tempt the children to try out the new product. And children have no choice but to buy the fancy looking product that is being sold by the school canteen.
Some of the junk products are labelled in languages or a manner that are not easy to read.
Sometimes television advertisement of some junk food further tempt children and many times children buy such products in school canteens without the knowledge of their parents.
The worse is when a child likes the taste; he will continue to purchase the product.
Sometimes, wholesalers, distributors of junk food run competitions to boost their sales and it is children who are often the targets. And of course school canteens end up making more profit. Maybe that's why school canteens focus more on profit than on any alternative healthy food and snacks.
Junk food contributes to a lot of health problems among school children, such as obesity, diabetes, tooth decay, etc. Junk food also makes a child lose concentration in academic and physical work.
Children who are fond of junk food lack active participation in physical education and sports. A sedentary lifestyle emerges among children who are fond of junk food.
Since Fiji is a tropical country where seasonal fruits are in abundance, school canteens should make use of local available fruits and sell it to children.
Some of the local available fruits and drinks in Fiji that can be sold in school canteens as alternatives are; fruits, mangos, mandarin, pineapples, guava, pawpaw, banana, passion fruit, watermelon, rock melon, etc. For drinks canteens could sell: coconut juice, fresh lemon /lime juice, fresh pineapple juice, mango juice, passion fruit, juice, etc.
Carbonated drinks should be strictly removed from all school canteens by the Ministry of Health.
This way school canteen can make a big difference in promoting healthy food.
However, many operators will make excuses and will compromise children's health by continuing to promote junk food for profit as more important to them than the health of a child.
In order to get around this, I strongly suggest that the Ministry of Health together with Ministry of Education should make it mandatory that all those who operate school canteens ban all unhealthy food and drinks. After the law is in place the Department of Health should on a regular basis check school canteens.
Wholesaler, distributors who import junk foods to our shores should be warned and taken to task by the Ministry of Health. This should be done especially regarding products without proper consumer information, ingredients, expiry dates and country of origin and those that are labelled in a language that locals cannot understand.
The law regulating what is sold in school canteens must be gazetted. It must clearly state that school canteens must remove and not sell elsewhere all junk foods which are detrimental to the health of our children. All school heads are to be made aware of this.
Finally, it would be better not to sell anything at all than to sell junk and unhealthy food and drinks and endanger and risk the health of our children as it is, and continues to be the case in many schools.
* George Prince is a letter writer the Fiji Times. The views expressed are his own and not those of this newspaper.