Summary:
The National School Nutrition Programme Guidelines aims to promote the availability of healthy food alternatives from school tuck shops in school premises.
Description:
The National School Nutrition Programme Guidelines sets out the responsibilities of various stakeholders including school governing bodies, educators, tuck shop operators and parents/guardians. Among these stakeholders, it states the following:
- School Management Teams and School Governing Bodies should promote the availability of healthy food alternatives from school tuck shops in school premises;
- Educators should promote good nutrition and healthy lifestyles in schools;
- Tuck shop operators should sell healthy foodstuffs and beverages;
- Parents and caregivers must ensure that they provide healthy food alternatives to their children;
- The community should encourage tuck shop operators to sell healthy alternatives.
Moreover, the guidelines provide lists that schools should give to the tuck shop operators within their premises. These lists name good and bad practices, in addition to give examples of high and low nutritional value foods.
The examples of snacks contain an evaluation of nutrition information. Furthermore, it indicates of how the nutrition information relates with healthy or unhealthy developments.
For FULL purposes, it is also important to highlight that, according to the document, each tuck shop operator:
- must operator must sign a Service Level Agreement with the school;
- must only sell beverages as milk, 100% fruit juice and water. These drinks would have to be in 200ml to 250ml containers.
- Vending machines at schools should be unbranded.
At last, these guidelines are based on the National Food and Nutrition Security Plan of South Africa.