Feeding the Troops

Society’s expectations about how schools can educate students about health and diet are influencing what is eaten in and out of school grounds.

There’s an old cliché suggesting that the way to get into a bloke’s good books is “through his stomach”.
Clearly the words are of a time long past – men of today are expected to feed themselves, and today’s women are far too busy and concerned about their own nutritional intake to worry about that of their male peers.
But when it comes to school-aged children and teenagers, the words have some relevance – and not just for the boys among them. “Feeding the troops” is of major importance on school camps; if the students aren’t fed to their satisfaction, it’s unlikely they’ll find much enjoyment in anything else.

However, what students are fed must go beyond the simple concept of quantity. As the health and well-being of children becomes of increasing significance – in general terms as well as because of the impact of child obesity in the Australian population - emphasis is being placed on the need for children to absorb a well-balanced diet so they may grow physically and mentally.

Increasingly, schools are becoming a focus of programs that not only place before children options for healthy eating, but also – by making those options appealing – influence the eating choices of children and teenagers in their lives outside school. 

And while the school camp or other excursion may form only a small proportion of the total hours in which a child is at school, it does have importance in demonstrating to a student the food that can and should be eaten for maximum performance.

It is also important because the camp menu supplies all nutritional requirements for the period the child is away from home, and not an occasional lunch or recess meal. The camp menu provides all meals and all snacks for the duration of the time away from his or her home refrigerator and kitchen cupboards, and so must provide a balanced nutritional input across the day, each day, in forms that will be accepted by the range of students on the camp.

That range of students makes planning the menu a lot more difficult now than it may have done a generation or two ago. Today’s student population includes children with a wide diversity in eating preferences or needs, due to cultural and religious factors, choices such as vegetarianism and veganism, and the increased incidence of health factors such as allergies, coeliac disease and lactose intolerance. But while the exact nature of the menus and food quantities will depend on the age group of the students – whether they are children in years three or four and perhaps away from home for the first time, or young adults – schools will not be satisfied with a promise of pizzas, hot dogs and vegemite sandwiches.

Many camps now provide catering, promoting the fact they have skilled staff qualified in diet and nutrition alongside their claims of accredited expertise in physical and outdoor education, and schools expect they will offer a menu that covers the school’s needs and is appropriate to today’s standards of health and nutrition. Most camps now supply menus, so that an individual school or other organisation can specify and discuss overall dietary preferences along with those cultural and health requirements that must be addressed for individual members of the school party.

Maxine Panegyres, project manager for the Healthy Foods in School and Preschools program in South Australia, points out that indications are that one in five Australian children now are overweight or obese.
“Schools have many occasions that involve food, from camps and excursions to the canteen to one-off parties and fetes,” Ms Panegyres says. “Schools may not be the problem, but they can be part of the solution. “Federal and State governments recognise that schools and education have a part to play in tackling the incidence of overweight and obesity in our society.”

As an example she points to South Australia’s Strategic Plan – the State government’s “mission statement” – which includes a target demanding an increase in the proportion of healthy people in the State by 2014.
“The students of today are tomorrow’s adults and parents, and so can lead the way in changing attitudes and behaviour, and creating a healthier society. In South Australia, our ‘Healthy Eating Guidelines’ set out six ways in which the school environment can support healthy eating in our kids – it’s all very well to have canteens providing healthy food, but that’s only one school setting that includes food.”

The school camp is another important setting; while the camps occur infrequently, during a camp all food – and therefore all nutrition – comes from the food organised for and provided by the camp or caterers.
“Schools have the responsibility to address this issue,” says Ms Panegyres, who is also a school principal. “Schools can – and today usually do – negotiate menus.”

She points to the new “Right Bite Healthy Food and Drink Supply Strategy”, based on the NSW Food Spectrum model of “green, amber and red” foods. It categories foods according to how healthy they are and how often they should be included in a healthy diet, and is forming the basis of guidelines for food and eating in SA schools – including on camp. “We certainly don’t want kids on camps to be fed only the foods in the red spectrum, and encourage schools to move to more foods within the green spectrum,” Ms Panegyres says. “We don’t want anyone to be hungry, but if they move toward more green and some amber, but no red, that would be great.”

Camps not based in a specialist facility – such as treks or other outdoor ventures – and so don’t have food provided generally involve older students who could be asked to help plan their menus. Older students can also be given pre-camp projects that fit into the “in-class” curriculum that ask them to investigate and plan menus that meet particular guidelines relating to nutritional intake.

Ms Panegyres says many parties – schools, parents, camp operators, sports organisers and governments – can play a part in guiding children towards healthy eating habits, and so influence their long-term health and well-being.