Schools determine the contents of students’ lunch boxes

Schools stressed the importance of families monitoring their children’s food and the contents of their lunch boxes to prevent them from being exposed to any health problems, noting that the best way to ensure that the child gets the nutrition he needs for growth is to encourage him to eat a healthy meal.

The schools sent messages to the students’ parents under the title “Healthy Food Policy” as part of awareness campaigns implemented before the start of the new academic year at the end of this month, in which they stressed the importance of healthy food in providing the body with the necessary daily energy and maintaining all its functions, noting that balanced food is one that contains different nutritional elements from all the basic food groups in sufficient quantities to meet the body’s necessary needs.

The school messages stressed that the healthy food policy aims to reduce the spread of obesity among children in schools, attract students to healthy and natural food, raise awareness of the dangers of fast food, and work to establish sound nutritional values ​​about the importance of public health and nutritional balance in our daily lives in the souls of students from an early age, in addition to spreading the culture of healthy food in the environment of students’ families and encouraging them to stay away from meals with high calories.

Schools have identified six benefits of students carrying a healthy lunch box, including providing them with the necessary energy, increasing their concentration at school, enhancing their academic achievement and mental and physical performance, providing them with the necessary amounts of essential nutrients, encouraging them to eat healthy foods, and controlling excess weight, because it reduces the feeling of hunger during the day.

The schools pointed out that the keenness of parents to ensure that their children receive a distinguished education must be matched by their keenness to ensure that they receive a healthy and balanced diet.

Pediatricians and nutritionists Osama Eid, Tamim Ghazlan, Hala Hassib, Nahla Al Ali, and Rabab Kamal confirmed that the type of food a student eats and the eating habits followed in his family and social environment play a role in the occurrence of obesity, pointing out the importance of following a brain-friendly diet to increase the ability to concentrate and comprehend, and to always feel active and energetic.

They stressed the importance of providing the components of a healthy and balanced lunch box with carbohydrates and protein to help the child learn, play and grow, in addition to healthy fluids, such as water and milk, which are the best options for children.

• 6 benefits of carrying a healthy lunch box with you on your way to school.

Lunch box contents

Schools called on parents to prepare their children’s lunch boxes in an innovative way, with a variety of items so that the child does not get bored of repeating the meal every day, and to prepare the sufficient quantity he needs without excess, and to put the food in small and organized boxes, and to diversify the foods and coordinate the colors to encourage him to eat, and to make attractive shapes for bread, vegetables and fruits, while ensuring that the meal is high in nutritional value and contains most of the nutritional elements.

She suggested that the lunch box contents be a snack, varied daily (cheese sandwich, labneh, jam, or peanut butter), and that a daily choice be made between one or two types of vegetables (sliced ​​apple, sliced ​​pear, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, bananas, dried fruits, cucumber sticks, carrots, and boiled corn), while drinks should be milk or yogurt, flavored milk, natural fruit juice, and water.