The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : It's media that decides what your child eats

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 14, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

It's media that decides what your child eats

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, OCT. 13. Children are `picky' eaters and difficult to please. But there are ways to get around that if parents and teachers apply their mind.

Government-feeding programmes may be constantly short-funded. But by allowing contractors into their canteens, private schools in the city have harmed the health of children, feel consumer activists.

They say that media advertisements make it look as if food is a reward, a pacifier or the high point of an outing. So much so that some parents prefer pre-packaged, `untouched by hand' food sold at the school canteen to homemade traditional food.

Teachers say it is easier today to talk to children about drug abuse and smoking but not about junk food and sugary soft drinks.

These were just some of the observations that surfaced last week as schoolteachers, nutritionists and consumer activists debated the nutrition status of children in private and State-funded schools.

Taste, image and a preference for brand names take precedence over homemade food. Parents succumb to pressure from the media and children follow suit, says Jayashree Nambiar, a teacher at The School, run by the Krishnamurthy Foundation of India.

Power of association

Advertisements work through `association,' where the mind captures some images and excludes others. For instance, images assiduously fostered by advertisements were those of joy and affection. Emphasis on `untouched by hand' production finds immediate acceptance over hygienically prepared, healthy food.

Consumer activists who surveyed nine schools with feeding programmes found that the quality of drinking water in seven schools was suspect because of the water shortage in the city. Though school curricula stressed natural, healthy food, insufficient funds and indifferent menus led to children refusing to take school-made food.

The survey found that canteens that encourage pre-packaged food and snacks do not monitor quality.

Some schools that allowed outside food because students liked it, also admitted to allowing contractors into the school canteens.

In a survey of three private schools that did not have canteens, only one had refused advertising though it allowed sponsorship of events.

The activists suggested that this be made the model for other schools to follow.

State-run school feeding programmes could alter their menus and include cheaper, but nutritive and palatable alternatives, the participants said.

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