Editorial: Healthy eating starts in the home

Banning all unhealthy foods from schools won't solve our obesity problem, says Linda Hall.

New Zealand public health experts have come up with a list of policies to tackle obesity in young people.

They are, in order of support from the panel of 52:

-That the Government set salt-content targets for certain food groups and a standard for fatty acid content of commercial deep frying fats;

-Further restrictions on marketing unhealthy food to young people, including sports sponsorship and television advertising;

-Ensuring schools and ECE centres are free of commercial promotion of unhealthy foods;

-No sales of unhealthy foods in schools and ECE centres;

-Mandatory front-of-pack star rating of packaged foods if not voluntarily adopted by the food industry; and

-A 20 per cent tax on sugary drinks.

Obesity has been in the news a lot lately. The fact that 10 per cent of New Zealand children and 30 per cent of adults are obese is not something New Zealand can be proud of. However, again I ask, is it up to the Government to stop it?

Healthy choices should start at home and banning all unhealthy foods from schools is not going to solve the problem.

What's needed is education for parents and school children. Remember those films we had to watch at school about smoking? Why not do the same thing with food?

If children start saying no to fizzy and fat, maybe their parents might take notice.

As for the recent call to ban lollies from some corner stores - that is just going way too far.

Every kid deserves to be able to have a treat now and again and choosing lollies from the corner store is just as much fun as eating them.