Some Pune schools ban junk food, offer nutritious fare at canteens

Even as the Delhi high court has asked the Centre to stop sale of junk food in school canteens with immediate effect, many city schools proactively implemented the policy some years ago.

From banning junk food in canteens to issuing guidelines to parents for tiffins and even employing qualified nutritionists to draw up detailed nutrition charts, a few city schools have led the way in banning processed and high calorie content foods on their
campuses.

Leading the pack is Vimannagar’s Symbiosis International School that runs a scientific mid-day meal programme followed by more than 60% of the students.

“We have a team of experts including doctors, nutritionists, school and parent representatives that deliberate on food served in mid-day meals. We fulfil at least one-third of calorific content required by children in our meal programme. For the students who bring tiffins, we have given guidelines on food to be eaten,” said Dr Rajiv Yeravdekar, director of Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences. He said the eating establishments on the campus are monitored for nutrition and hygiene.

Kiran Jadhav, vice-principal, Vikhe Patil Memorial School said the policy for nutritious food in tiffins had been well accepted by parents. “We started this a few years ago and it is followed by most parents. The teachers eat in the classrooms with students and monitor the content of the tiffins. If it is noticed that there are students who repeatedly eat high calorific food not fit for them, then their parents are called in. We have identified and called such parents to discuss the issue,” said Jadhav.

Jaya Venkatraman, principal of Aundh DAV School said they banned processed foods, but met with moderate success.

“Mostly, students eat nutritious food as we have issued specific guidelines. But some children do bring high calorific or junk food and we can’t do much about it. We cannot ask them to skip eating that meal and we cannot force them to eat in the canteen,” said Venkatraman. She said the canteen serves nutritious food, which is monitored by the management.

At BG Academy in Wakad, principal Koyna Zaveri said the plan to ban junk food backfired, which forced the management to withdraw its decision. “We started this no-junk food policy a few years ago. While our cafeteria menu was revised, we monitored food in tiffin boxes. The parent of a student refused to comply and after a long time, we were forced to tell the student not to eat tiffin and instead eat canteen food. The parent and some others staged a dharna and later withdrew the children from the school mid-term,” she recalled. While the food in the canteen is according to instructions from the nutritionist, the school doesn’t enforce any ban on content of tiffin boxes.