BC School Food Guidelines support healthy food environments

VANCOUVER, BC, April 11, 2022 /CNW/ - The Childhood Obesity Foundation supports the draft BC School Food Guidelines. "It is critical that the school environment support children's health and well-being," says Dr. Tom Warshawski, Chair of the Board of Directors for the Foundation. "To teach that water is the beverage of choice while serving juice or pop with the school lunch program sends the wrong message," he adds. "Let's all get on board," says Dr. Warshawski, "and support children's health. Well-nourished children, learn better, behave better and feel better too."

These voluntary Guidelines are not all that new. There have been similar guidelines in place since 2005. The new Guidelines focus on all foods offered or served whether they are sold or not. The new draft guidelines do not apply to the food parents send for lunch or snacks.

We appreciate that some parents are concerned that fundraising events might be impacted. This concern came up when the school food guidelines were first introduced in 2005. Most parents jumped on board and found other ways to raise funds besides selling hot dogs, freezies, and pepperoni pizza. It took a little extra effort to find alternatives and any initial loss of revenue was generally recovered in the end. The same with sports teams - they ended up feeling better about being consistent about the foods they encouraged their team members to eat and what was being served at school. A win-win situation in the end.

The Childhood Obesity Foundation encourages and supports families to prepare and serve healthy foods at school and at home.  The Foundation offers two programs to support families to adopt healthy eating habits - Generation Health, a free, BC government funded 10 week program available to families with kids 8-12 years old in communities across BC this Spring, and Aim2Be, a free healthy living app, available in the App Store and Google Play.

The BC School Food Guidelines are draft at this point and feedback is being invited from public health experts, the education sector, the food and beverage industry and other stakeholders until April 30.  We encourage parents and caregivers to review the guidelines and support efforts to improve the health of BC children.

About the Childhood Obesity Foundation

The mission of the Childhood Obesity Foundation is to lead a societal shift toward healthy eating and active lifestyles to promote childhood healthy weights and the resulting physical and emotional benefits. childhoodobesityfoundation.ca

SOURCE Childhood Obesity Foundation

For media interview requests with Dr. Warshawski, please contact: Janice Macdonald, [email protected], Mobile: [phone]