Why is healthy eating important in schools?

It’s important to educate children at an early age about eating healthy foods. Eating healthy helps a child maintain their concentration and energy levels. This helps a child to effectively learn throughout the school day.

By cutting down sugary foods and drinks, children learn better from healthy eating. This has been supported by Centres For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Providing nutritionist food supports children’s growth and development for the future.

The UK Government identified the importance of eating healthy in schools. In 2010 the Government introduced new food standards across schools. This law was to provide children with healthy balanced diets. Nowadays schools must provide nutritious meals to all children and school dinners must now serve healthy whole foods. Foods such as meat, poultry or oily fish and vegetables, bread, cereals and potatoes are essential for children to have a healthy diet.

What are the benefits of children eating healthy?

School dinners have come a long way since the start of the century. There has been a huge emphasis on educating parents and children about the importance of eating healthy in school. Many scientific studies show why this is important for children’s health and development.  

One key health benefit of a healthy diet is improving a child’s emotional and mental wellbeing. This can help to prevent bipolar disorder and ADHD in certain situations too. Also eating healthy can stabilize a child’s mood sharpen their minds. However, eating healthy can be challenging for children as there are unhealthy foods marketed to them. This is evident as there are around 20% of Year 6 children that were classified as obese. Furthermore, only 47% of children were meeting the current physical activity guidelines according to the NHS.   

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed the importance of eating healthy from an early age, stating that having a healthy diet can protect you from developing complications later in life.

More-so, the vitamins that your child can get from eating the right food have direct links to brain function. This is evident with whole grain foods. They contain lots of iron which can have a positive impact on red blood cells that carry oxygen to the brain. This is important because Deficiencies in iron and other vitamins can affect cognition.

Dolce School Catering creates a range of nutritious meals for children at school which can help with your child’s development. To do this we use:

Seasonal Fresh Produce

Dolce is proud to operate a cook from fresh policy. We take excellent care in selecting quality, nutrient-dense and sustainable produce that we use in our school meals. Meats are selected to promote animal welfare and fish is always MSC. Our dairy is always British, and fresh produce comes from LEAF Marque certified farms.

Fresh is best in all aspects of our food preparation. We cook fresh food each day, bake fresh bread, homemade desserts and produce our range of exciting meals. We also use seasonal produce and the best ingredients available to us. This means that our foods benefit from being fresher and fuller as well as being sourced locally from the best British crops.

Food Education

Dolce School Catering provides fun and educational cookery classes for pupils and parents. This allows the parent and child to learn more about healthy foods to encourage them to make healthy meals at home. Dolce also has lots of tasty recipes online that anyone can make. Our team hosts Food Science Classes in schools to teach children the importance of eating healthy. 

Healthy Food Menus

The Dolce menus are nutritionally analysed to make sure they are compliant with the School Food Standards. We provide healthy food menus through each term operating on a three-week cycle. As well as serving a selection of healthy side dishes, bread and a well-stocked salad bar. Also, we work closely with student councils to try out new dishes for each new cycle menu.

Parents

Parents can help to encourage their kids to eat healthy at school too. Dolce allows parents to choose to place orders online from home or on the go via the online app. We encourage parents to choose to pre-order food with their children. 

Healthy Eating Starts With Breakfast

Eating healthy starts with breakfast, and results show this. According to research from the CDC students who ate a healthy breakfast tend to have better grades. Also, their test scores are better, they have improved memory and reduced absences.