A healthy eating initiative is proving hard to stomach for one Gisborne school.
Waikohu College will shut its tuckshop on June 1 because it can't afford to comply with a ban on unhealthy food.
Principal Dave Coldham said the decile-one college, with 110 students of mostly Maori descent,
couldn't afford to bring in pre-packed sandwiches and rolls from as far as Auckland.
Without outside funding he estimated pupils would have to find at least an extra $10 a week, or go hungry.
He praised the aim of the Government's plan but said schools were leaned on too heavily to be parental role models. The college already provided a breakfast programme for nearly half its students who would otherwise not eat.
Although pies, sausage rolls and chocolate weren't ideal brain food, Coldham would prefer his pupils to eat them than go hungry.
"We would not have 10 per cent of our students who bring a cut lunch to school," he said.
"Under the present system our kids can get a feed for $3. We would be looking at $5-plus [for the new food]. People are not going to pay that money.
"I'm not against the initiative, I think it's positive, [but] schools are asked to engineer social change when they shouldn't be."
Maureen Williams' 12 children and five grandchildren have all gone to the college, and two of the grandchildren are still there.
She said the challenge was getting kids to want healthy food and outright bans might not achieve that. "They will just go down to the shop," she said. "Having a tuckshop is better and it keeps them inside the school."
Schools have had ample notice about the changes in the Healthy Eating - Healthy Action plan, but Waikohu's request for financial help was declined.
