Nutrition
Nutrition is important to health throughout life. The influences on healthy eating for children are diverse. Parents and families have the most significant influence on a child's development. Schools also play a significant role and have been identified as a key setting in which to address healthy eating. The school years are particularly important years where children experience rapid growth and development. Consuming nutritious food and adopting a healthy lifestyle assists students to grow and develop to their optimum potential, leading to improved educational outcomes. A healthy diet plays a preventative role in relation to nutrition-related conditions and diseases such as overweight, obesity and dental disease, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus (type 2) and a range of cancers.
The school tuckshop can provide a significant proportion of a student's daily nutrient intake, when lunches and snacks are purchased regularly from the tuckshop. This has a considerable influence on their growth patterns, energy levels and the development of healthy eating habits.
The school's tuckshop reflects to students, parents and the wider school community the value the school puts on healthy eating practices. In addition to providing nutritious food, the tuckshop has important health promoting, educational, social and cultural roles within the school. The wide range of attitudes to food also needs to be acknowledged.