Health

EU to fight child obesity with free fruit plan

by julianw | July 8, 2008 at 06:21 pm

349 views | 10 Recommendations | 2 comments

In an effort to fight child obesity, the European Commission has launched a €90 million a year initiative to provide school children with fresh fruit and vegetables.

The commission aims to spend 90m euros (£71m; $141m) annually on the scheme - a sum to be matched by participating governments, who are yet to approve it.

About 22 million children in the EU are overweight - more than five million of them obese, the commission warns.

The figure is expected to rise by

400,000 annually.

The World Health Organization recommends a daily intake of 400g of fruit and vegetables per person. Most of the EU's 27 member states currently fail to meet that target.

Its interesting to see a massive, state-sponsored program implemented at a time when most of Western Europe is run by conservative governments whose economic orthodoxy generally discourages government intervention. On that subject, check out an excellent Globe and Mail story in which Doug Saunders argues that the European right are dominating elections by appropriating the policies of the European left.

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Uwe Paschen

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 20:23 on July 8th, 2008

julianw, I like this story. It's good stuff.

They do come up with some good ideas every now and then! After about a douzent bad once that is!

mchawk

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 03:55 on July 9th, 2008

julianw, I like this story. It's good stuff.

An interesting turnaround, with Cameron poised to take power in the next UK General Election, when you consider that it was his heroine, Margaret Thatcher that did away with the school-milk subsidy in the 80's.

It never ceases to amaze me how far nanny-state politicians will stoop to get our votes. The real story should be better health-education and improved school-dinners. This feels like a band-aid being applied in a bid to save money on healthcare, further down the line.

(before anyone points it out - yes, I am a cynic)