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Objective:

The objective of this policy is to inculcate healthy eating habits and good food practices in school.

 Applicable to:

This policy applies to all students and staff.

 School's Value (s) guiding the policy:*

a)      Value Term: Excellence, Fairness

b)      Why:

• Always implement practices that continue to produce valued outcomes.
• Every student and staff has to follow the same food policy.

Rationale:

• Food policy is formulated keeping in mind the short-term and long-term health issues for the children.
• Junk food can causes a lot of health problems in growth and development for children like obesity, being and overweight and being underweight, due to lack of the right nutrients in their diet. Such issues can have severe emotional impact also because of the unwanted attention that such children get.
• Junk food does not provide an individual with the nutritional requirements which a growing body requires.
• Studies have shown that the onset of chronic degenerative diseases such as diabetes, heart ailments, cancer etc. is closely linked to the quality of nutrition that an individual gets through their lifetime. Childhood is the time when the right eating habits needs to be set otherwise the risk in the middle and senior years of their life increases significantly.
• By having the school made food, a child learns to eat green vegetables, cereals and pulses.
• Any food prepared for a large number of people cannot cater to individual tastes. It is in fact important for children to learn to eat things that they may not like in terms of taste, as long as it is healthy and nutritious.

 Policy Guidelines:

Guiding Principle:

• Children should bring nutritious, home cooked and freshly prepared food.
• Children should learn to eat variety of food items including vegetables and preparations which they are not necessarily used to.
• Children may bring only pure vegetarian (without eggs) food in their tiffin for their first break. The quantity of food sent with their children should be such that children are able to finish it comfortably on their own. The quantity of food should be based on what children eat on a regular basis rather than the quantity that you as parents expect them to eat.
• The school provides regular food (pure vegetarian food without eggs) as well as Jain version of the same food from its own kitchen. However, the school shall not force the child to eat Jain food if the child does not wish to. The school takes no responsibility in this matter.
• The home room teachers and other teachers will do their best to monitor the food eaten by the children. However,

1. The school will not force children to eat
2. The school will not force children to finish their tiffin / served portions
3. The responsibility for the above has to be taken by the children themselves at all ages. Taking this responsibility is a learning process for the children and please keep in mind that it takes different children different periods of time to learn
4. The school at no point of time will be in a position to report amount of food eaten by the child in school. Please do not ask the teachers/staff for a report of the same.

• We are informing you about food items that can be brought by students and food items that are not allowed. If you send a food item that is not allowed, the school will confiscate it and the child will have to depend on his/her classmates to share their Tiffin with him/ her.

Note: Dry snacks such as chevda, mamra, khakra, popcorn etc. are highly discouraged. We encourage parents to be Proactive and cook/prepare a fresh & healthy lunchbox for their child.

 1: Why are some things never allowed in school:

The reasons why some food items are never allowed in school or less the consumption is discouraged by the school is because each of these food items contain one or more of these items:

• high amount of preservatives
• sodium (in the form of salt)
• sugar
• oils containing saturated or trans fats.

All these items (typically known as junk foods) are harmful when consumed regularly over a period of time.

2: Why are eggs or non-vegetarian food not allowed in school:

Please note that if consumed in the right manner, Eggs & non-vegetarian food are healthy food items. However these food items are not allowed in school due to the school policy.

3: Why does the school allow home-made junk food on Fridays / Saturdays?

Our past experience tells us that in spite of having a strict food policy; parents still send junk food with their children. We have now decided to allow certain homemade junk foods only on Fridays. The rationale for this is that Children learn that what they are eating is junk and can be enjoyed only once in a while. Studies have shown that current generation of children cannot even tell if a particular food item is junk or healthy and allowing certain junk foods only on Friday is our way of helping them discern between healthy and junk food.

Standard Operating Procedure: Code & Link*: NA

Consequences: *:

In case of non adherence to the food policy the food will be taken away by the kitchen incharge.