The Ontario government has announced greater funding for school-aged children to receive healthy meals and snacks in schools.
With a goal to give students the “healthy start they need to learn, grow and succeed”, as said in a statement by the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services (MCCSS), they are looking to see “positive academic outcomes” with the Ontario Student Nutrition Program (OSNP).
There is a lot of “data and evidence that healthy eating and well-balanced diets do provide the energy and the nutrients that kids need to be kids,” said Ginette Blake, Registered Dietician in Public Health for Middlesex London Health Unit (MLHU).
This allows them “to play, to learn, to be active, to attend school which is really important”, said Blake, in order to “meet their potential”.
(Credit: Heart and Stroke Foundation)
The funding will provide over 140 million healthy meals and snacks to Ontario students with 73 schools in the Middlesex-London area under it.
The student nutrition guidelines are “largely based on Canada’s Food Guide,” said Blake, mainly consisting of “fresh, frozen or canned vegetables and fruit” and “smaller amounts of protein that may be plant-based or animal-based, and whole grains.”
The First Nations Student Program also falls under the $5 million increase and will serve more than 1.4 million meals for those students. Across both programs, over 800,000 students will be served in the province.
(Credit: Ontario Student Nutrition website)
“There hadn’t been an increase in the number of schools locally receiving funding since 2014”, said Blake, with two schools being added more recently.
“We’re excited that there’s an increase in both Ontario funding and federal funding, so looking to see if more kids can benefit from this really essential funding,” said Blake.
If you’re interested to learn more about the OSNP program, click here.
