Realising the potential of schools to improve adolescent nutrition
In this article, the authors argue that school health programmes have the potential to mitigate a growing epidemic of malnutrition in children and adolescents.
In this article, the authors argue that school health programmes have the potential to mitigate a growing epidemic of malnutrition in children and adolescents.
This brief discusses how inclusion and equity in education can be improved when there are investments in children’s health and nutrition through well-designed school feeding programmes that provide food to children in school.
School meals programmes have an important role to play in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. When appropriately designed, they have the potential to improve the diets and nutrition knowledge and practices of millions of schoolchildren and their communities.
Costa Rica’s School Child and Adolescent Food and Nutrition Programme (PANEA) is an example of a consolidated school feeding programme mostly funded by the central government and managed at school level by School Education Boards.
Today, Bolivia offers an example of a highly decentralised approach to school feeding as there is not yet a national program.