Rann encourages schools to Be Active

Rann encourages schools to Be Active : "'The Be Active Challenge in its pilot form starts this year, we're putting about $1.8 million into it and next year there's going to be a ban on junk food in our school canteens.'"

All of this will be to no avail unless the parents and community come on board. The parents seem to be doing the right thing judging by the amount of lunch box food which is thrown away which I blogged about earlier this week. If canteens supply healthy food, if the parents supply healthy lunch boxes then some older children will walk out of schools to the nearest shop. They'll take that risk. Will the local shops refuse to sell them food? Some younger children will just be petulant enough to plain not eat. Been there done that and as a parent it is an interesting , challenging battle. My way out of it was to sit down and negotiate the lunch box and to permit one canteen lunch per week which we discussed. It ended up being a trust thing but I'm led to believe it worked okay. The hour of physical activity a day is quite a lot out of a school day. It needs to be after school and at the weekends as well so that exercise is a normal part of anyone's day and not just out of learning time. It can be a battle at school and it can be a time when the children are needing to learn other things as well. Health is part of daily living and should be at school but it needs to be in life as well.