Government decision-making: school lunch programme

Teacher note

Worksheet

Governments can put a lot of effort into policies and funding to encourage healthy eating, and to discourage obesity and other lifestyle diseases.

The School lunch programme for elementary students, run by teachers, nutritionists and other officials in Wellington’s sister city, Sakai, shows how others use central and local government to help meet such challenges.

There are some things people just do. There are some things where it is a matter of choice as to whether governments should get involved.

The World Health Organisation, a United Nations specialized agency, has got involved by telling the world what it found when it measured obesity.

Japanese are one of the slimmest peoples in the world, ranked 163 by the WHO. Japan’s population has 22.6 per cent classified as obese. New Zealand is ranked 17th most obese – 58.4% of our people are obese.

What can New Zealand l;earn from the Japanese school lunch programme? How much should be done by governments? How much is a matter of personal responsibility?

A Sakai City nutritionist plans to provide 650 calories in each day’s school lunch.

Central government lays down policies that influence the school lunch programme – health officials prescribe the calorie level, trade officials encourage local officials to buy locally produced foods.

The Sakai local government staff who provide the school lunch programme aim to educate kids to educate parents.

In New Zealand, Parliament’s Health Committee received submissions during 2006 to help decide what NZ should do about obesity. The New Zealand Ministry of Health has a healthy eating, healthy living strategy – and projects to implement it are provided by the government and the community.

Key understandings that you may wish students in your class to explore are outlined below

Government decisions affect people’s lives.

Society can be influenced to varying degrees of significance by government decisions.

People seek to influence the government decision-making process in order to advance what they consider beneficial to society.

This chapter of the Kansai through Kiwi eyes DVD offers a number of illustrative examples of government decision-making in the New Zealand and Kansai settings, including,

• A Sakai City nutritionist arranges to provide 650 calories in school lunches for primary students
• A Sakai City school lunch director says central government says the programme should buy locally produced food
• A NZ Parliamentary Committee investigates what government should do about healthy living, healthy eating, and government has a strategy in this area

Worksheets can be used to explore the central concept (i.e.choice) of this chapter.

Think of further lines of inquiry for the classroom.