Letter to the Editor

[velvetpage]

Re: Ministry of Education’s School Nutrition Policy

Trust the Government of Ontario to take an essentially sound idea and mess up the implementation until it’s barely recognizable.

Teachers aren’t allowed to give candy as prizes anymore. I can get behind that. But we’re also not allowed to serve freezies after the annual Terry Fox Run or Play Day next June, unless of course they’re 100% juice. This strikes me first as far too restrictive, and second as wrong-headed; as any nutritionist will tell you, juice has too much sugar and too little fibre to be good for you anyway. Similarly, diet sodas are no improvement over regular because the sweetener is one not recognized by the body; they’re at least as bad for you as regular Coke, but the diet caffeine-free ones are permissible.

Pizza places have to comply with the regulations to sell pizza at elementary schools. That means whole wheat crusts, low-fat cheese, and most importantly, full-disclosure ingredient labels. That last effectively puts all small businesses out of the running for the school market, because they can’t afford to put their ingredient list on every box. Way to support local business!

Many teachers have arrived at their first in-service of the school year to discover that the regulations designed for children are also applied to situations where no children are present. I’m rather surprised that a crowd of angry, under-caffeinated teachers didn’t show up at Queen’s Park when they realized that the Board of Education was no longer allowed to serve coffee and tea with caffeine in them at events designed for groups of teachers. How exactly does serving coffee at an in-service with no children at it set a bad example for children?

Could we go back to teaching our children about a reasonable balance between healthy and non-healthy foods? This policy is so restrictive it’s punitive, and that in the long run will do more harm than good.

Comments

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of sympathy with the requirement for a full ingredients list (in fact, I think having one available should be a legal requirement for all restaurant food--you would be AMAZED at how many restaurants cannot tell you what is in their food), but there's no reason it needs to be on every box rather than just easily available.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I also think there's a point where the school should not be fully responsible for policing students' allergies. At some point, a student with a life-threatening allergy must be able to say, "I can't tell what's in that so I can't eat it." We can be (and are) trained to react if they make a mistake - but the first line of defense is the students' own ability to advocate for themselves.