We welcome the World Health Organization’s (WHO) release of its new global guideline on healthy school food environments, which closely aligns with the vision of Plus One Serve to create healthier, more equitable food systems.
Schools play a critical role in shaping lifelong dietary habits. Children spend a significant portion of their day at school, and the foods they are exposed to and consume during this time can influence their growth, learning, health and wellbeing well beyond childhood. School food environments therefore represent a powerful opportunity to support healthier eating patterns early in life.
The WHO guideline calls on governments and education systems worldwide to adopt whole-school approaches that promote healthier food environments. These approaches focus on increasing the availability and uptake of nutritious foods and beverages, establishing clear nutrition standards for foods served or sold in schools, and using evidence-based strategies to make healthier choices easier, more appealing and more accessible for students. The guidance also emphasises the importance of monitoring, enforcement and community engagement to ensure lasting and meaningful change.
This global direction strongly reflects Plus One Serve’s commitment to improving food environments in ways that not only nourish children, but also address nutrition inequities and support lifelong health and wellbeing. Like the WHO, we believe that healthy food environments — underpinned by strong policy, collaboration and local partnerships — can help unlock better health outcomes and build more resilient communities.
The WHO guideline, Policies and interventions to create healthy school food environments, can be read in full here:
https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/6989e26c-c181-4ec8-bb99-104415a2e142/content