Colleen Kimmett

In Canada, parents are usually the ones stuck packing their kids’ lunchboxes.

However, climbing rates of childhood obesity, with one-quarter of kids overweight or obese, and rising poverty have some wondering if we shouldn’t try a more strategic approach to this burgeoning public health problem.

For many, this means starting at school.

“The need for school meal programs has already been acknowledged by every province,” says Bill Jeffery, director of the Canadian branch of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).

In Canada, provinces provide some funding to subsidize meals and snacks—B.C.’s Fruit and Vegetable Nutritional program is one example—and they regulate food and beverages sold by school vending machines, cafeterias and fundraisers.

Jeffery doesn’t think the provinces are doing either job very well. “The whole point here is more kids are suffering health problems as a result of poor diet.”

In 2005, fuelled by growing concern about junk food in schools, particularly vending machines, provincial health ministers agreed to create school nutrition standards as part of the Integrated Pan-Canadian Healthy Living Strategy.

Six years later, nutritional guidelines for food and beverage sales are now in place in all provinces and the Yukon territory.

A 2007 report card issued by the CSPI rated each of the provincial guidelines against standards set by the Canada Food Guide and the U.S. Institute of Medicine. It found “weak nutrition standards that permit the sale of nutrient-poor food”, wide variation between provinces, and virtually no public information about whether schools were complying or not.

Anecdotal evidence, at least, suggests that they’re not.

Along with more stringent nutritional guidelines, the Centre advocates for federal dollars for “pan-Canadian” school meal program to replace what has become a patchwork of provincial subsidies, corporate donations, parental volunteer efforts, and non-profit pilot projects.

Comparatively, average support for each Canadian student is about $5.95 per year. In the U.S., federally funded school meal programs total $212 per student per year.

A link between good nutrition and learning outcomes is well established, and for a long time school meal programs have been framed as a public health and social policy issue.

More recently, the environmental movement had shifted its attention to food as a vehicle for its priorities, helping make food a campaign issue for the first time in the last federal election.

“We have accepted that health is a public responsibility and everybody knows that food is the basis of health,” says Cathleen Kneen, chair of Food Secure Canada said at the time. “If you send kids to school who haven’t had food to eat that morning, how on earth do you expect them to learn?”

During that election Kneen was one of many to point out that Canada is the only G8 country without a national school meal program.

France has a highly-regarded universal school meal program that costs about $6.40 per child per day. Half is subsidized by the government, and parents pay the rest according to household income.

Elementary school children in Japan eat lunch that is prepared and served on the premises. A typical lunch might include miso soup, tofu, milk, rice and vegetables (check out this blog for other examples). Parents pay about a third of the cost, and subsidies are available for low-income households.

In Sweden, a typical lunch consists of meatballs, potatoes or cabbage rolls and salad. It’s free, for every student – in fact, elementary and secondary schools are forbidden to charge for meals.

But these programs have been entrenched in the culture of these countries, and the Canadian context is much different. For starters, the majority of elementary schools here don’t even have kitchens or cafeteria space.

We’re also a geographically and culturally diverse country, more like America than France.

So is the U.S. National School Lunch Program a model to follow?

In 2009, $9.8 billion fed more than 31.3 million American children, and all meals and snacks are subsidized to some extent. Families with incomes at or below 130 per cent of the poverty level pay nothing, while families with higher household incomes pay about $2.30 per lunch.

While the program has garnered a fair share of nutritional criticism, including an unfavourable comparison to prison food, research has found that a free meal at school can help break the cycle of poverty.

Nutritional standards are set to improve under President Obama’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act signed into law last year.
“Canadians spend a lot of time flattering ourselves that we’re more socially conscious and socially just than the Americans,” says Jeffery. “This is one issue that they’re light years ahead of us on.”

Will Valley, a UBC graduate student who is trying to create school food systems within Vancouver, has some reservations about a federally-run system.

“Every locale has a different food culture,” says Valley. “If the federal government wanted to interfere and say everyone eats this, everyone eats that…,” he shakes his head. “I’m not sure.”

“If it was money from the federal government to support regional and local food systems and autonomy, that would be great.”

Myself and reporter Jeff Nield talked to new farmers at the McVean Incubator Farm in Brampton, Ontario, and at Kwantlen University’s Farm School in Richmond, B.C. We found that these farmers tend to be:

1. not from a farming background
2. university educated, who already have a career or two under their belts
3. growing close to urban areas on five acres or less
4. selling their produce directly to farmers’ markets or through CSA’s

By keeping it small-scale, they are able to keep costs down. By selling direct to consumers, they are able to fetch a higher price. However, one of the biggest challenges for new farmers is access to land.

Both McVean and Kwantlen have partnered with municipal and regional authorities to acquire long-term leases for urban agriculture. As this concept of “agricultural urbanism” grows, it will be interesting to see how other cities and suburban areas put it into practice.

In New Haven, Elm City Food Co-op sprung up in response to food deserts that are left in the wake of grocery chain consolidation, in London the People’s Grocery hopes to find a new market in those hard hit by the economic crisis, and the subject of my story, Home Grow-In Grocer, came about due to an overwhelming and under-served demand for local food.

CNN’s Money section even told conventional supermarkets that they should take note: Part of the reason New York’s Park Slope Food Co-op is so successful ($39.4 million in sales last year) is because — go figure — it responds to what its customers want.

As Deb Reynolds, owner of the Home Grow-In told me, part of the challenge of launching a co-operative venture is getting people out of their “me, myself and I” mindset. Getting her employees, volunteers and suppliers on board to invest in a new larger space was a bit like holding hands and leaping. Whatever happens, good or bad, they’re in it together….