UAE education ministry gets tough on school meals

Dubai: The Ministry of Education will work directly with food suppliers in order to distribute food products to school canteens starting from the next academic year, the head of Nutrition and School Health Department at the ministry said.

The ministry plans to ensure that schools meet their health and nutrition standards, Aisha Al Siri said during the ministry’s celebrations during World Hypertension Day (WHD) yesterday.

“[World Health Day] falls on the 17th of May every year so we are celebrating it today by giving our employees free checkups and nutritious facts. We are focusing on hypertension [as] we want to raise awareness about the importance of eating healthy, exercising, not smoking or drinking and remaining stress-free because all these factors lead to hypertension,” Aisha said.

She also spoke about future initiatives by the ministry aimed at promoting healthy eating among schoolchildren as part of efforts to fight unhealthy habits such as skipping breakfast and eating to much junk food.

“We have already issued a circular to all school canteens with rules and standards that include the types of foods that can be sold to children, whose implementation started last year. However in the next academic year we will follow a different strategy. The ministry contacted food suppliers who will be in charge of distribution food products to schools that already meet our standards in terms of the type of food, storage and packaging.”