Making sure kids get better food at school canteens

LAST month, the Education Ministry banned the sale of 12 categories of foods and drinks in schools (“Junk and processed food banned in schools”, The Star, Sept 26; online at bit.ly/46VkEJh).

School canteens should indeed be offering healthier choices of foods and drinks to the children. This is not a new issue, and many efforts have been made to improve the situation – in vain, it would seem. I first highlighted that school canteens were selling non-nutritious foods when I first started working as a nutritionist in 1973. Some 52 years later, we do not appear to be any closer to resolving the problem.