CONCLUSIONS
Food landscapes are rapidly evolving around the world and it is critical to act now to avoid the long-lasting, deleterious effects of poor diets on current and future generations.
Food literacy and related media-literacy programmes are underutilized strategies to build resilience to the complex and dynamic industrial food environment. Such knowledge will complement and enhance the effectiveness of existing global efforts undertaken to improve food systems, sustainability and health (World Food Programme, 2018).
Empowering youth, who are particularly vulnerable to Big Food, to make appropriate decisions on food acquisition and consumption and the reintroduction of cooking skills may serve to disrupt the burden of over-and under-nutrition and the projected intergenerational health challenges in LMICs.
We advocate multisectoral investment in food and media literacy interventions at scale for youth. Such interventions will be instrumental in responding to the environment in which young people are developing. They will provide educational platforms that engage community, teach life skills and promote behavioural change, elements that are critical to the future of global public health.
Figure 1.
FOOD AND MEDIA LITERACY AS A MEANS OF PROTECTING LMIC YOUTH FROM BIG FOOD INFLUENCESDirect foreign investment in LMICs
Diet quality, malnutrition & chronic disease risk among youth Youth food literacy
• Food & nutrition knowledge
• Food skills
• Self efficacy & confidence
• Beliefs and culture
Youth media literacy
• Recognize, evaluate &
understand media messages
Local food system
• Availability
• Affordability
• Accessibility
Youth decisionfood
& dietary behaviors Food & media
literacy intervention
Marketing of ultra-processed
foods Availability of ultra-processed
foods
Source: Authors
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ABSTRACT
An effective school food policy is an important tool in promoting healthy, diverse and sustainable diets and can contribute to obesity and chronic disease prevention and help eliminate all forms of malnutrition. This article reviews the topical literature to date and makes policy recommendations aimed at fostering healthy school food environments. These recommendations are based on an exploratory study charting the food environment in Mexican state primary schools and exploring the obstacles to implementing the country’s federal school food regulation.
This article argues that school food policy needs to be based in a human rights framework, with particular attention to the Rights of the Child, the Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition and the Right to Water. It emphasizes how policy needs to take into account the economic and structural realities of schools to be effective, for example, the funding constraints facing schools and school food vendors.
Furthermore, policy needs to protect children from access to ultra-processed foods and the marketing thereof, both on and around school grounds, in addition to ensuring access to safe water. Implementation and operational aspects, especially financial viability, must be considered part of policy design, rather than an afterthought. Policy should be safeguarded from conflicts of interest and industry interference and should aim to support sustainable food systems and the promotion of culinary culture and practices. Lastly, school food policy must be aligned with nutritional, agricultural and trade policies and the Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition.
INTRODUCTION
A healthy school food environment is important to obesity prevention and, as such, essential to achieving the 2030 Agenda – in particular, SDGs 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 – and to guaranteeing the Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition, the Right to Health, the Right to Water and the Rights of the Child.
Recommendations to transform schools into healthy food environments that support nutrition and obesity prevention have been put forward by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2016), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO and WHO, 2014), the Report on Food Systems and Nutrition of the UN Committee of World Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE, 2017), the Second International Conference on Nutrition Framework for Action (FAO and WHO, 2014), and the Work Programme of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (FAO and WHO, 2017).