The Rio City Council unanimously approved a bill that prohibits the sale and offer of ultra-processed beverages and foods in public and private schools in the municipality. The approved text went on to be sanctioned by Mayor Eduardo Paes, who has already gone ahead and released a menu of the month on his social networks, to be adopted in schools in the municipal education network and day care centers in the city hall. The menu has breakfast, daily, coffee with milk, smoothie, yogurt, fruit, varying during the five days of the week. The lunch menu always includes rice, beans, meat or chicken, salad and fruit for dessert. When leaving school, the children have milk, a smoothie, always accompanied by fruit, as well as bread with cream cheese, egg or tapioca couscous. The food guide is based on the National School Feeding Program (PNAE) and is supervised by the Undersecretariat for Sanitary Surveillance of the City Hall. The post made today (14) by Eduardo Paes came after he was asked, in a meeting with students last week, about the lack of variety of proteins in the school menu. One student mentioned that the school where she studied only served chicken and eggs. Eduardo Paes wrote: “This is our entire network menu for the week. Monday is the egg/omelette day, because there is no time to defrost [os produtos no freezer], due to the weekend”. Paes said that there are four versions of the menu, developed by the Annes Dias Nutrition Institute of the Municipal Health Department, responsible for the menus of schools and municipal hospitals. “Of course, occasional problems can happen in a network of over 1,500 schools, but nothing but occasional problems can be accepted”. The mayor also said that there is a difficulty in including fish in meals, because the tender carried out by the municipality was not able to hire fish suppliers, but he added: “We are rushing to solve it”. In the event of non-compliance with the law, private education institutions in the city will be notified for regularization within ten days, when a daily fine of R$ 1,500 may be applied. Councilor Cesar Maia (PSDB), the original author of the project, celebrated the approval. “This is not an individual initiative project. The initiative allowed the discussion to take place widely in a collective decision. The Chamber wins, the children win, Rio de Janeiro wins”, he celebrated. Councilor Felipe Michel (PP) drew attention to the dimension of the issue, which goes beyond the limits of the municipality. “It is a global public health problem that affects not only Brazil, which ranks fourth in childhood obesity. The Chamber needs to participate and discuss because the most favorable environment to start this change is in schools. We do need to ban these ultra-processed foods in public and private schools,” he said. Bad for health Ultra-processed foods are those that have undergone greater industrial processing. In general, they have a high amount of added sugars, fats, substances synthesized in the laboratory and, mainly, preservatives. In addition to having little nutritional composition, they favor excessive calorie consumption, cause negative effects on health and, if consumed for a long period, can cause obesity. Research carried out jointly by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) in 200 schools in the city of Rio de Janeiro showed that ultra-processed foods are 126% more available in canteens than foods without any degree of processing. On a canteen rating scale of 0 to 100, schools in Rio rank 26.
Agência Brasil
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