Study of Compliance of Law on Healthy and Balanced Diets by Schools in a District of New Delhi, India

Abstract

AbstractThere has been a steep increase in incidence of complex life style diseases. An unhealthy diet, alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption and high stress levels are major contributory factors. While action may be directed at dealing with all these points by various mechanisms, the issue of resolving unhealthy diets in schools, and the compliance of its related legal framework is discussed in this paper. In 2020, the Indian food regulatory organisation passed a regulation assuring school children are provided food that meets the standards of safety and a balanced diet. To this end, there has been consideration making sure foods with high trans/saturated fat and with added sodium and sugar do not form part of the diet of school children. All exposures to such foods, direct or indirect, have been prohibited and schools have been made accountable together with other local agencies. To understand compliance with this regulation, information from 49 public-run schools in a district of India’s capital New Delhi were collected and reported. The implementation and compliance status in these schools has been dismal with 24% being, for example, the maximum compliance for a single factor related to implementation of ‘Eat Right Campus’ campaign and similar or lower levels of compliance for other factors related to advertisement of unhealthy foods. The status of implementation and compliance of the food regulations for schools can inform policy and future actions required in this area. The creation of laws regarding regulation of schools must be followed by thorough implementation in order to deal with issues of rising global childhood obesity and other clinical manifestations (in the form of other lifestyle diseases) of unhealthy diets among children now and during adulthood.