Healthy and sustainable food pathways for schoolchildren
At FAO, we envision a world where all people enjoy healthy diets, the backbone of Better Nutrition,
one of FAO’s four goals.
For schoolchildren and adolescents, healthy diets are essential to grow, develop and be protected
from disease.
But worldwide, 149 million children under the age of five are too small for their age. 40 million are
overweight. Many millions are suffering from deficiencies of key nutrients.
Many of these children are carrying over their nutritional problems into school age which affects their
capacity to learn and overall development.
Addressing malnutrition is central to improving individual development and well-being, advancing the overall
economic and social development of families and communities and ensuring the Right to Food for vulnerable
people.
Likewise, the current environmental and socioeconomic issues around the world are threatening the very
existence of future generations and can’t be ignored or separated from the efforts to address malnutrition.
Access for all
The right to adequate food is only realized when everyone, alone or in community with others, has
physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.
Let’s look at the pathways towards improving nutrition and promoting more sustainable food practices for
schoolchildren and adolescents and see what FAO and partners are doing to support these pathways around the
world.
Healthy food and habits in the classroom and beyond
Forming long-term healthy eating habits not only requires regular access and exposure to nutritious foods,
but also positive influences from caregivers and peers, skill development and motivation. This is where
schools come in!
Key moments inside and outside the classroom can become opportunities for children and adolescents to learn
about how food systems work and about how to make changes and develop skills to improve aspects of their own
diets.
Essential and complementary to this is the food available in and around schools, which is often a key part of
children´s daily diets and nutrient requirements.
In the classroom
Alongside hands-on, practical, and meaningful food education sessions, school staff and teachers can act
as important role models. Even staff’s own food behaviours and beliefs can make a difference.
Head teacher on how food education impacts children’s lives
In the canteen
There are many ways school meal programs can support better quality and enjoyable diets for
schoolchildren, as well as more sustainable practices for those who produce, process and prepare such
meals. These ways range from ensuring that the meals provided are aligned with what is taught in the
classroom, planning menus that promote procurement of nutritious and low input crops, to creating jobs
and long-term training programmes for processors, cooks, evaluators, and so on.
Parent on what kind of food education she would like for her child in school
In the school garden
When used as learning labs, school gardens can form an understanding of the connections between food,
personal and community health, and the natural world.
Teacher on benefits of using school gardens as learning platforms
In the media
From a very early age, children pick up food behaviours by observing and imitating others. If the home
diet is lacking in variety or in certain essential foods, or laden with empty calories, it can be the
result of wider social norms at large. Such behaviours can also be influenced by marketing and
advertising.
As social media has evolved, so have the ways of food advertising, which depend more and more on young
influencers, app ads, short videos, among others.
Adolescent on how food advertisements impact her and other children’s
choices
Education is the key
Food education, together with a healthy food environment, fosters healthy habits in children and
adolescents.
What is FAO doing to support food education and nutritious school food?
As a response to the international call for improved nutrition and food systems, FAO created a framework for
action through school policies and programmes.
FAO aims to support countries not only to ensure that children in school consume adequate, nutritious,
diverse, safe and enjoyable food for improved learning, but also to foster lasting, healthy and more
sustainable food practices that extend to their families.
The School Food and Nutrition Framework is focused on:
Promoting a healthy food environment and school food
School food environments include all the spaces in and around schools where food is
available, purchased and/or consumed (for example school meals, tuck shops, kiosks,
canteens, food vendors, vending machines), as well as the information, promotion and
prices of such foods. Food environments shape how accessible, affordable, desirable and
convenient those foods are to the school community.
Stimulating inclusive procurement and value chains for school food
When school meal programmes purchase fresh and nutritious foods from local farmers, this
can provide economic opportunities and improve community development.
Integrating effective food education throughout the whole school system
Effective food education in schools aims to help schoolchildren, adolescents and their
communities to improve their food practices, as well as to build their capacity to act
as agents of change in their own food environments.
FAO promotes a “whole school” approach to food education, where all people that interact
in the school setting, including children, their families, teachers, school staff, local
farmers, foodservice staff, food vendors, and government staff are involved.
Creating an enabling political, legal, financial and institutional
environment
To be successful, policies and programmes to improve school food and nutrition need
mechanisms that allow for the coordination of the various sectors involved, regular
funding and the development of institutional capacities.
FAO works with international and national partners to provide guidance on the
development, revision and adoption of national, regional, or global policies, and legal
and regulatory instruments in the area of school food and nutrition.
Effective food education - what is needed for change?
Working with WFP and UNICEF for better school food and nutrition around
the world
Partnerships are key to achieve shared goals and maximize the impact of common efforts: FAO constantly and
strongly collaborates with other organizations and UN sister agencies in the rollout of its programmes.
FAO is partnering with WFP, with the support of the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture, to assist
countries in defining minimum criteria for quality and nutritious school meals and other foods available in
schools.
FAO and UNICEF are collaborating to develop the capacities of different countries to design food education
programmes that are meaningful, relevant to today´s complex development challenges, and of high impact.
Food, nutrition, and the COVID-19 pandemic
During the peak of school closures in 2020, more than 350 million children in 199 countries were missing out
on meals at school due to pandemic response measures. At present, more than 150 million children are still
kept away from schools and are not benefiting regularly from school meals and other nutrition services.
To mitigate the effects on schoolchildren, FAO, WFP and UNICEF have provided government decision makers,
school administrators/staff and partners with guidance and assistance to help safeguard schoolchildren’s
food security and nutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recommendations include:
Distributing nutritious meals or food baskets (with high nutritious value foods like pulses, milk, eggs,
fruit and vegetables) regularly.
Reinforcing food and nutrition education learning plans (face-to-face, virtual, or blended) focusing on
healthy eating behaviours and on enhancing the home diet, targeting both students and families.
Ensuring safe spaces when children are eating or for distribution of baskets.
Building upon existing safety-net structures, including social protection programmes and food banks, to
cover vulnerable schoolchildren.
Creating contingency plans for unplanned closures and for safe reopening of schools.
