The president of the Community Nutrition Society rejects catering in dining rooms and maintains that you have to pay more for the menu
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 30 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The president of the Spanish Society of Community Nutrition and specialist in Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Javier Aranceta, calls on educational centers to be “in tune” between learning and reality because they cannot teach biology and healthy habits and after there is ” chocolate palm tree and it was there for three months because it was left over from Christmas”.
In an interview granted to Europa Press on the occasion of a conference on healthy eating organized by Hiperdino and Hecansa on the islands, he indicates that “the school often washes its hands” and in his opinion, “everything has to be educational, including food “.
Aranceta understands that a school “is not the place” to sell sugary drinks, ‘snacks’ or industrial pastries because “the obligation” of the institutions is to promote “healthy environments” and help students make a good choice, although she believes there is no need to being “Taliban” and not having a chocolate bar.
Thus, it calls for the start-up of ‘healthy vending’ machines with ‘tupperware’ of fruit, traditional sandwiches or freshly squeezed orange juice, as they already operate in the universities of Deusto or Navarra, for example.
In the second case, there is even a color identification system that regulates the suitability of each product –red, yellow and green–.
Aranceta points out that “everything should not be prohibited” but rather, establish a negotiation with children and young people and make them understand that sweets, chocolate or chips are “occasional things” during the weekend or on a birthday. “Don’t feel like you’re doing something wrong,” she says.
He gives as an example of the failure of the ban what happened in France in the mid-1990s when these products were withdrawn from the centers and the children bought them in the surrounding shops, which shows that in the end “they do it in secret “.
“THE FAMILY HAS TO GET INVOLVED”
“It is an educational process in which the family has to get involved. That they do not appreciate that life has put them on a diet,” he stresses.
Regarding school canteens, he is in favor of an “integrated” canteen ahead of catering and also believes that parents should pay more for the menus even if it is a “revolution” –the minimum amount is 4.60 euros– to guarantee the higher quality of service.
In addition, he proposes organizing “a kind of association between fathers and mothers” with a work schedule that would involve parents, some shopping, others in the kitchen and a third group serving in the dining room.
“You have to try it,” he says, among other things because the father who goes to the neighborhood butcher shop, when he says that the meat is for school, “will give him the best” because the butcher’s son studies there or even because he himself was student in the past.
Along these lines, he recalls a project that he started with fruit that was ‘chopped’ and once it was chopped and the bad appearance removed, they ate it “and no one knew”, what happens is an added work for the workers.
“It’s not easy, but you have to want to,” he emphasizes, noting that many times croquettes or dumplings are used that “you can even put pieces of devil.”
Aranceta also points out that the school garden “is a support” to achieve healthy habits because if the child “waters it and sees it grow the same, salads cease to be a black mark”, just as in homes encouraging them to do small activities in the kitchen to unleash their skills.
NUTRITION IS NOT ON THE AGENDA OF THE GOVERNORS
However, he regrets that nutrition is not “on the agenda of the rulers” who have not understood that if in this field “invest one you save ten” in the treatment of chronic diseases and those associated with aging.
He gives Japan as an example, which in the 1980s “realized” that its population was aging and had the highest life expectancy in the world.
“They threw numbers and realized the unsustainable health spending and launched a nutritional education program for the population and support for innovation through functional foods. That’s where kilometer zero began,” he says.
