Page 133 - ON THE WAY TO HEALTHIER SCHOOL CANTEENS - Irma Evenhuis

Implications for policy
Finally, the studies reported in this thesis provide insights for policy implications. These implications are related to the macro-level environment (Figure 7.1) and can be divided into efforts with regard to 1) healthier canteen policy, and 2) the local and national governments.
The future of the Guidelines for Healthier Canteens
The studies performed in this thesis all contributed to the implementation of Guidelines for Healthier Canteens in schools. In terms of the future, updating of these guidelines if new relevant scientific evidence or practical based information is available is necessary. Updates should include relevant evidence regarding strategies to create a healthier food environment and adaptations in the Dutch nutritional guidelines, without losing practical feasibility. Consequently, this process should be performed in an iterative process, involving stakeholders from research, practice and policy. These adaptations could be made on a regular basis and should be communicated at an early stage.
Part of the guidelines are the dietary criteria that determine whether a product is considered to be a healthier or less healthy product. Currently, healthier products are
defined as foods and drinks recommended in the Dutch nutritional guidelines “Wheel of
Five” [79]. In addition, so-called “day choices” are tolerated: products not included in this
“Wheel of Five” but containing a limited amount of calories, saturated fat and sodium [79].
At present, this results in the situation where a healthier canteen can offer products that
do not really contribute to a healthy dietary pattern. In practice, offering in a healthier
canteen small portions of less healthy products, for example small bags of popcorn or
candy, led to confusion among students and parents. I therefore advise setting a minimum
for the products included in the “Wheel of Five”, like water, whole grain products, fruit and vegetables, and restricting the number of day choices. 7
Efforts to be made on local and national government
Schools are a place where youth can learn and grow, in terms of educational aims but also in broader terms, in their development into healthy, responsible and independent adults. Consequently, ensuring healthy eating at schools should be a priority of national and local government. This encompasses, besides healthy school canteens, efforts with regard to nutritional education and a healthy food environment around schools.
At present, nutritional education in schools is not compulsory in the Netherlands. This contrasts with the pedagogical task of schools educating students towards independent individuals. There already exist multiple voluntary interventions to educate children, from toddler until adolescence, to learn healthy dietary behaviour: for childcare, primary schools, and secondary schools. In this pathway, youth can be educated stepwise about nutrition, so they receive the knowledge and skills to make healthy dietary choices throughout their life. However, to ensure that all children receive this education, regardless of their social economic position or background, nutrition needs to become compulsory for all schools.
At the same time, as long as unhealthy food and drinks are easily accessible in the environment around schools, policies for schools will have limited impact on youth’s dietary behaviour. At present, the national government has increased its attention towards
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