The Lunchbox

Trivandrum schools are trying to inculcate good eating habits in their students

October 30, 2014 05:11 pm | Updated May 23, 2016 07:38 pm IST - Thiruvananthapuram

Schools are encouraging students to eat a balanced meal Photo: K. Ananthan

Schools are encouraging students to eat a balanced meal Photo: K. Ananthan

Packing snack boxes and lunches for children is a nightmare for most parents, especially if the child is a fussy and picky eater. Although you try to make them eat healthy, in this day and age of fast food and junk food, it’s often a losing battle.

Schools in the city are trying to encourage kids to lead healthy lifestyles with awareness drives, programmes and initiatives. While Saraswati Vidyalaya recently launched CATCH (Co-ordinated Action Towards Complete Health), a wellness programme for its students, Trivandrum International School is holding a Junior Marathon on November 1 for students aged 10 from schools across the district in a bid to promote healthy eating.

Says Shyalaja O.R., principal, Saraswati Vidyalaya: “Due to the change in food habits, children are becoming listless in class. They are also falling prey to colds and coughs and some even develop lifestyle diseases as a result of their poor choice of food.”

With CATCH, the school hopes to improve the food habits and holistic health of the students by training 30 selected teachers as ‘Health educators’ and 100 students from the school as ‘Health Monitors’.

The health educators will be given intensive training on school health. The health monitors will keep a check on the items packed in the lunch boxes, release health newsletters, hold school marathons and so on.

“Once a foundation has been laid, we hope to expand our awareness to other schools and gradually to society as a whole,” says Shylaja.

Trivandrum International School’s run for goodness is for creating awareness among children on the importance of a balanced diet and on obesity and its related diseases. The marathon starts from Kowdiar and ends at the Kanakakkunnu Palace grounds. “Apart from the focus on the need for exercise, we also hope to promote good and healthy eating habits through this event,” says the school’s principal Rupa Sen.

Daphne Gomez, principal, L’ecole Chempaka, recalls how her generation and that of her parents would insist on packing fresh home-cooked food for their wards. “Most students these days, however, do not have a balanced diet as many parents don’t find the time to prepare such meals for their children. It’s mostly heated up leftovers or junk food such as nuggets and crisps that are packed for school. Children need to go beyond their current diet of burgers, fries and pizzas,” says Daphne.

Regular consumption of junk food can be addictive and lead to obesity, lifestyle diseases, low self-esteem and even depression among children and these will affect their performance in school and extracurricular activities.

According to health coach Manjunath Sukumaran, children should be ‘food trained’ from when they are toddlers, since they are most influenced by their families during their early ages. “If children are taught to make healthy food choices early, they are more likely to stick in them once they enter school,” says Manjunath.

Trivandrum International School believes in serving its students hot meals on campus. Children need not bring any snacks for break time or pack lunch from home. “This is our way of ensuring the students have a balanced meal. But while we can monitor what they eat while in school, we can’t monitor what they indulge in off campus,” says Rupa. Shantiniketan School teaches its students how to prepare healthy eats during home science periods.

But teaching kids that ‘good food’ is also tasty is only half the battle won. “The other half must be fought against the deluge of junk food advertising directed at children. It is impossible to ignore the influence the food industry has over kids’ appetites since you can’t turn on the television without being flooded with advertisements about delicious yet unwholesome foods. However, if parents stay firm, children will eat healthy and stay healthy,” says A. Nirmala, principal, Shantiniketan School.

How to make the lunch box interesting

* Discuss healthy food and drink choices with your children and let them pick what they would like to have in their lunchbox

* Encourage your kids to help prepare their lunch boxes.

* Introduce new dishes.

* Try and make the contents in the lunch box colourful

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