Healthy Food in School

Children spend more time in school than in any other setting outside of the family home. This makes it important for the school environment to promote positive health behaviours, such as healthy eating and physical activity.

A healthy diet has been shown to improve children's learning and behaviour, and is beneficial to the school community as a whole. Providing healthy food and drinks at school, and restricting unhealthy options supports parental activity to establish nutritious eating patterns, and makes the healthy choice the easy choice for children.

Within the school setting, there are many different food environments that must be considered for a consistent approach to healthy eating across the whole school. See the section on School Food Settings for more information on the settings below.

• canteens and tuckshops

• vending machines

• classroom rewards

• incursions and excursions

• school sponsorship

• lunchboxes