School canteens should dish out healthy choices, not junk

Junk food lures students and is harmful for the overall development of children. There are umpteen healthy alternatives which need to be encouraged. The school authorities should make stringent rules and ensure that canteens do not sell junk food. If they do so, stiff penalty should be imposed on them. It is the moral duty of teachers and parents to persuade students to opt for healthy alternatives and guide them on the ill-effects of junk food.

Sugandha Kohli, Mohali

Parental guidance needed

Children get addicted to junk food due to its taste and do not realise its harmful effects. It leads to obesity and other chronic illnesses. Parental guidance is needed to avoid junk food. Schools need to stop the sale of junk food in canteens and should discuss the adverse effects of junk food in the morning assembly every day. Posters against the use of junk food should be displayed and the canteen contractor penalised for violating the instructions.

Wg Cdr JS Bhalla (retd), Chandigarh

Junk food causes 

fatigue, weakness

Junk food consumption leads to many health problems. One serious problem caused by it is obesity among children at a very young age. At the same time, it causes fatigue and weakness. Even after the ban on junk food by the government, schools fail to keep students away from these hazardous items. Moreover, schools offer a wide variety of junk food which is prepared under unhygienic conditions.

Parul Bakshi, Chandigarh

Enlighten the young

The public as well as the authorities are not sincere in ensuring adherence to rules or directives. A recent instance is the ban on the use of polybags. Although adverse effects of junk food on our health have been established worldwide, the fad for it has not subsided, especially among children and the young. Therefore, there is need to enlighten our young generation to make them responsive.

Surinder Paul Wadhwa, Mohali

Promote ‘swadeshi’ food

Health and nutrition experts should be asked to suggest tasty alternatives to satiate students' palate and appetite. We may take Baba Ramdev’s help to promote ‘swadeshi’ eatables.

Tejinder Singh Kalra, Mohali

Encourage students to bring tiffin boxes

In view of the CCPCR circular to discard junk food and substitute it with nutritious and hygienic food, certain private schools in the city have already closed their canteens. Students bring their lunch boxes containing healthy food from home and share it during the lunch break, sitting together in small groups. Let this exercise be mandatory for all government and private schools.

Nikita Kapur, Chandigarh

Canteen menu should have healthier options

School environment is a critical venue for promoting and supporting healthy eating habits. Healthier options on the menu of school canteens should be introduced. There should be restriction on availability of junk food and drinks around the school premises too. Schools can fix a day in the week to provide students the food of their choice.

Kamalpreet Kaur, Mohali

Advisory fails to achieve its aim

Banning junk food in school canteens is a misconceived idea. An advisory in this direction has not achieved its objective. Parents should be educated and the children told about the harmful effect of junk food with the help of visuals. If the CBSE and the CCPCR have sent healthy alternatives, these should be displayed and added to the menu of school canteens.

Bharat Bhushan Sharma

Schools should avoid sale

Fast food or junk food, though devoid of nutritional ingredients like carbohydrates, proteins and fibrous stuff, is consumed extensively by the younger generation, particularly students, as these tickle the taste buds and are ready to eat. These foods have ill-effects on health and cause obesity, indigestion and heart ailments. So, the sale of these must be banned in canteens and tuck shops of schools and institutions.

SS Arora, Mohali

Ban piecemeal measures

The popular saying, 'It is better said than done', holds true of the piece of advisory by the CCPCR seeking a blanket ban on junk food in school canteens. The advisory comes close on the heels of a similar advice via a circular to replace junk food with nutritious alternatives in public and privately-run school canteens. These piecemeal measures would take us nowhere.

Ramesh K Dhiman, Chandigarh

Food culture develops at home itself

Serving junk food in school canteens is a non-issue, especially when there is no restriction on what they eat at market places. Food culture develops at home where even stuffed parantha has been cherished in a healthier style for centuries. The issue should only be quality of food, junk or otherwise, as also cleanliness on school canteen premises.

MPS Chadha, Mohali

Penalise schools selling unhealthy stuff

Sale of junk food in schools needs to be discouraged as it is necessary to make the future citizens healthy and fit. For the purpose, penalty clause should be added to the advisory of the CBSE to its affiliated schools to shun junk food.

Rajeev Kumar, Chandigarh

Mere passing an order will not help

The advisory by the CBSE to its affiliated schools on banning the sale of junk food in its school canteens is good in spirit and for the health of the children. But a mere passing of orders will not help. The orders have to be strictly implemented by the authorities through surprise checks and fines. For recurring violation of orders, the licence of the school should be cancelled.

Madhu RD Singh, Ambala Cantt

Permit only FSSAI-certified food in school canteen

Instead of oily fried food and other stuffed preparations containing high calories, only packed food items and drinks with FSSAI mark should be allowed for sale by the school canteens.

AS Ahuja, Chandigarh

Blacklist canteen contractors flouting ban

Every school should write daily the harms of eating junk food on the board where the thought for the day is displayed so that students understand the harms of eating such stuff. Canteen contractors should be issued a warning regarding the sale of junk food. If they ignore it, they should be blacklisted for contract in schools across the city.

HBS Batra, Mohali

Advisory without penalty of no use

In the past, it has been observed that the advisories fail to have the desired effect. I am of the firm opinion that before implementing any new scheme, the authorities must consider beforehand that if it is not adhered to by the public, what further action is to be taken. In the present case, the school authorities should be held responsible for not complying with it.

Tarlok Singh, Mani Majra

Form panels to conduct checks at canteens

There should be no compromise with the health of students, whether it is a private or government school. Each school should form a committee to conduct a surprise check at the canteen to ensure that no junk food is sold there. The school administration should be tough with the canteen contractor found selling junk food. A heavy penalty should be imposed.

Balbir Singh Batra, Mohali

Schools violating norms should face the music

Junk food is the reason behind pot bellies and overweight children in India. The shortest and easiest way for the working parents is to make their children fill their tummies with junk food. School canteens selling junk food after the issuance of the advisory are liable for heavy penalties. 

Wg Cdr Jasbir Singh Minhas (retd), Mohali

Don’t play with health of nation's future

Junk food, though easily available and prepared, is actually harmful for the health of students. Children are the future of the nation. And they must not be thrown into the furnace of junk food.

RK Kapoor, Chandigarh

List food items with nutritive value

A circular should be planned with food items having minimal nutrition value based on recommended dietary allowance, on the list. Food with minimal nutritional value should be strictly banned for sale in government or private schools. Vending machines should be installed offering healthy nutrition bars, juices and milk. The commission may consider introducing meal programmes to educate students about nutrients in food that they require on a daily basis.

Davinder Saini

Lunch box should have balanced fare

Parents are equally responsible for students eating junk food. Serving couples in the city are unable to prepare tiffin boxes for shortage of time. It is easy for them to give money to their kids which they use to buy junk food. My suggestion is that parents should prepare the lunch box with balanced food - fresh seasonal vegetables, curd, fruit and chapatis.

Anokh Singh Kahlon, Mohali

Conduct survey on students’ food choices

Interactive sessions can make students aware of the consequences of eating junk food and help them quit it. A lot of students would love to have good home -made dishes. Every school should conduct surveys to know what the students would love to eat if no junk food is sold in the canteen.

Chaitanya, Chandigarh

Junk the junk food effectively, collectively

Comment | Nitin Jain

The prescription has been given by the Chandigarh Commission for Protection of Child Rights (CCPCR). It is not the first time that such an advisory has been issued. It was only in January this year that the Central Board of Secondary Education issued a circular, listing the detailed measures to be taken to curb the availability of junk food in school canteens, and replace it with healthy alternatives, but alas to no avail. This was followed by a similar advisory by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights last month.

The CCPCR also wants a dietician to be consulted by the school while finalising the menu for the canteen and food to be provided to children during the school hours. The food made available in school should meet the standards laid down by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. Every school should set up a school canteen management committee.

The schools have also been advised to take steps to ensure that no junk food is available around the premises. The authorities are also expected to inspect the lunch boxes of students to rule out consumption of unhealthy food.

But all this remains on paper. 

A random visit to some city schools threw up a startling revelation that junk remains the most sought-after food and there is hardly any other item on the menu to choose from. While the school heads and canteen contractors find it difficult and unrealistic to implement such a diktat on the grounds that junk is the only food in demand, parents seem not much 

concerned about advising the students against it as they feel that junk food is "not so bad" if taken once in a while.

If recent health studies on increasing obesity, hypertension, diabetes and other lifestyle-related ailments among city residents, especially youth, are any indication, junk food needs to be junked once and for all. This is premised on parents and school authorities not working at cross purposes.