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ANNAPOLIS VALLEY, N.S., AND TORONTO — Colin Sneyd sits at a crowded lunch table eating his sliced chicken breast, cheese, carrot sticks and apple. As he sips a small box of milk, a friend across the cafeteria table inhales a mound of gravy-soaked poutine. Another snacks on a bag of chips, washed down with a can of pop.
Behind the counter, a worker at Toronto's Northern Secondary School slits open bags of frozen fries, plunging them into boiling oil.
"People just have fries for lunch," says Colin, a slight 15-year-old who brings his own packed lunch to school. "I think it's kind of ridiculous. I don't think they need to serve fries. If you're trying to get kids to eat healthier, you should serve them only nutritious food."
Colin may be an unusual teenager, but Northern's sugar-and-grease-filled fare is all too typical of many schools across the country, according to a Globe and Mail survey. Of the 74 boards that responded to the national sounding:
8 per cent reported that none of their high schools serve French fries;
93 per cent allow hot-dog days or pizza days;
74 per cent said their schools sell pop (six boards did not respond), 72 per cent sell candy bars (five boards did not respond), and 77 per cent sell chips (four boards did not respond);
30 per cent said all their schools offer nutrition counselling.
In other words, while they talk a good line about healthy fare and food-education programs, most schools are nutritional wastelands. Worse yet, many boards make no apologies, saying they are merely giving students what they want.
Catherine Moraes, senior manager of business development and nutrition services at the Toronto District School Board, says the board does make sure that students have a healthier option in the cafeteria. But she doesn't believe eliminating junk food is the answer.
"If we disregard what they're looking for, they'll leave the school property at lunchtime," Ms. Moraes says. "They'll go to hot-dog vendors, they'll go to local convenience stores where there's no hope of finding a healthier option."
Nutritionists aren't impressed with this kind of thinking, especially from educators.
"If we're really serious about fostering healthy habits in our future generation, then we need to take more action," says Leslie Beck, a dietitian and columnist for The Globe. "We can't just do this lip service any more."
"I would hope that schools would take the high road," adds Rhona Hanning, an associate professor in health studies at the University of Waterloo, "that they would be an example of healthy living, and that kids would have the opportunity to practise the nutrition and healthy-living messages that they're getting."
In an ideal world, the dire statistics on children's health would be a wake-up call for schools to toss the deep fryer. The overweight/obesity rate among adolescents aged 12 to 17 stands at 29 per cent -- more than doubling between 1978 and 2004, according to Statistics Canada. And the younger a child becomes heavy, the greater the risk of health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and some forms of cancer.
To be sure, children are not eating well. A mere 14 per cent of those between 9 and 12 consume four or more servings of vegetables and fruit a day, studies show, and about one-third of Ontario students drink pop daily. While some provincial governments are taking steps to ban junk food in schools, those changes are coming slowly.
The British Columbia government has introduced "voluntary guidelines" to eliminate candies and sugary drinks from schools by 2009. Manitoba, too, has put forward guidelines, but is not banning outright the sale of greasy and sugary foods.
Nova Scotia is one of the most progressive provinces, outlining a three-year plan to wean children off junk food, with ice cream, chips and pop off the menu this month. In Ontario, junk food has been purged from vending machines only in elementary schools, but hot-dog days are still allowed; high schools continue to sell greasy fare.
Indeed, The Globe survey found that, while the sale of junk food may be waning in elementary schools nationally, little if anything has changed in middle and high schools.
