The government encourages primary schools to help children live healthier. A healthy school lunch and more physical exercise during school time can help in this regard. Research shows that there is support for this among parents, children, and schools. It is also feasible as long as these parties are involved in the organisation.
Parents are willing to help pay for the costs (€1.75 per child per day), but that will not cover all the costs (€2.40 per child per day for the selfmade lunch and €4.50 for the school lunch with exercise activities). Support is therefore needed to provide financial support for less wealthy families in this regard.
For a self-prepared lunch, children themselves make a healthy lunch at school. This requires at least 30 minutes to do so. A caterer can purchase and deliver the required goods. The school can also do this itself, but that requires good coordination. Additional physical exercise activities can be organised by scheduling brief exercise intervals during the classes. Educational co-workers, such as those from the after-school care services, as well as neighbourhood sport coaches can help when it comes to sport and play activities.
By making their own lunches, children end up eating more fruit, vegetables and whole-wheat bread as well as drinking more milk and water. More exercise activities and self-made lunches will contribute to children having a healthier weight. The percentage of overweight children between the ages of 4 and 18 could decrease from 13.5% to 10.2% by 2040, and the percentage of obese children from 2.8% to 2.3%. This decrease could contribute to fewer adults being overweight, obese, or diabetic in future. However, for that to happen, the children would have to maintain their change in behaviour as adults. To help children in this regard, school lunches and exercise activities could be supplemented by activities in secondary school and in their neighbourhood.
This study was carried out in response to previous successful projects with healthy school lunches and more physical exercise in primary schools.