WA schools are being told to bring in controversial changes to canteen menus, requiring them to remove foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fat.
Dozens of WA school canteens are yet to adopt rules introduced two years ago which placed cakes, biscuits, chips, confectionery and sugary drinks on the “do not sell” list.
On the eve of term one, the advisory body assisting with the roll-out has sent a “toolkit” to schools with tips to ensure their menu adheres to the Education Department rules.
But there are concerns the changes will further threaten the viability of school canteens, many of which now outsource to catering companies due to a lack of volunteers and mounting costs.
The idea of banning certain foods from school menus has divided both the school community and health experts.
Perth paediatric dietitian Kyla Smith said while she supported a whole of school approach to good nutrition, she would prefer it not to involve a ban on any foods.
“I’d prefer to remove the restrictive terminology and look at how we can make it easier for kids and parents to want to order more nutritious options,” she said.
“Canteens are already incredibly difficult to run at a profit and it’s increasingly hard to attract staff who have the skills and passion to work within the challenges and rules.
Dr Smith said more nutritious foods were also more expensive.
“Banning the less nutritious options doesn’t automatically help children eat healthier foods. If anything it just makes it harder to continue to provide food at school,” she said.
“There’s so much energy going towards telling kids what not to eat and I think it would be better directed at helping children learn about and explore food and health behaviours without restriction, judgement and shame.
The long-standing traffic light system for school canteens was updated two years ago. Menus now must feature 60 per cent of “green” items such as fruit, vegetables, dairy and pasta and 40 per cent of amber foods such as pizza without ham, burgers, scrolls and chicken nuggets, which must be served with fruit or vegetables.
Sugary items including cakes and biscuits were added to the red category and should not be sold. Sausage rolls, croissants and hot chips can be offered two days a week but once removed from the menu they cannot be re-introduced.
Aisling Dempsey, who manages the Fresh School Nutrition Advisory Program (FreshSNAP), said the new toolkit launched last week was designed alongside canteen managers and recognised the challenges involved in overhauling canteen menus.
“We would obviously love to see all schools make changes as quickly as possible,” she said.
“But, we also acknowledge that there are challenges to make those changes, including accessibility to fresh produce.”
Ms Dempsey said the perception around the role of the canteen needed to change.
“Unfortunately the canteen is seen as almost like a business, so (we are) trying to shift that narrative so it’s not actually a money making thing, it’s about ensuring kids are given an environment where they can access nutritious food and thrive at school,” she said.
“(The canteen) is a vital part of classroom behaviour management, if kids are eating high sugar foods at lunch time of course they’re going to come back into the classroom and crash in the afternoon.”
Ms Dempsey said financial viability and resourcing were the biggest barriers to implementing the changes.
“We find there will be highly motivated people within the school environment who want to make a change, but ultimately, budgets are tight, personnel is limited, the infrastructure might not be there,” she said.
“So it’s about making sure that there is the financial and human resource support to enable the change to actually happen.”
Ms Dempsey said WA was leading the country in its holistic approach to school nutrition, with oversight from both the health and education departments.
FreshSNAP, which is run by the National Nutrition Foundation, encourages schools to self assess their menus and it is up to public school principals to ensure canteens meet the requirements.
“If the school has their menu publicly available, we’ll just proactively reach out with some gentle tips around things that they could do to ensure they comply with the policy,” Ms Demspey said.
“But I think the big thing from our perspective, we want this change to happen because people genuinely want to improve the school food environment. We don’t want it to be a punishment and that ‘you have to follow the rules of this policy.’
“Shifting that motivation to being for the actual benefit of the students is what’s going to result in long term, meaningful change.”
Data from 2022 showed that more than 40 per cent of public schools met the requirements. At the time, 75 per cent of public schools had a food service or canteen.
It comes as the World Health Organisation this week released its own guidelines calling on governments to play a greater role in overseeing and enforcing “healthy” school canteen menus.
The WHO called for consistent standards focusing on healthy foods such as fruit and vegetables and restricting unhealthy foods. The organisation also suggested “nudging” techniques such as placing healthy food at eye level to encourage children to purchase.
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said schools were on the frontline of the double burden of childhood obesity and undernutrition.
“The food children eat at school, and the environments that shape what they eat, can have a profound impact on their learning, and lifelong consequences for their health and well-being,” he said.
Dr Ghebreyesus said policies alone would not be enough, “and monitoring and enforcement mechanisms are essential to ensure that guidelines are implemented effectively and consistently in schools.”
The Education Department’s canteen rules do not extend to lunchboxes, and schools are discouraged from “lunch box policing.”
But parents are encouraged to raise any concerns they have with their school canteen menu with the P&C or canteen manager.
WA food entrepreneur and cook book author Lauren Cheney runs home-style meal service Mr Butler, and recently launched a “school lunch club” service delivering nutritious meals to Perth homes.
She said school food should not only be a matter of convenience or compliance, but a “critical driver of long term health.”
“While nutrition education in schools is improving, many canteens are operating under real constraints — limited volunteer support due to dual working households, and heavy reliance on food manufacturers that only loosely meet guidelines,” she said.
“Until education, canteen policy and food supply are aligned, we miss a critical opportunity to deliver protective and preventative nutrition in practice, not just in principle.”