Improving children's nutrition via school lunches

Phase One of Nourishing Hawke’s Bay: He wairua tō te kai worked with communities and rangatahi using systems science methods and mātauranga Māori to develop systems maps and action plans for improving children’s nutrition.

At the same time, the Government announced the national programme for free school lunchs (Ka Ora, Ka Ako) for the most disadvantaged schools as part of its COVID recovery plan. This covered more than 40% of the Hawke’s Bay’s schoolchildren (12,000 students). The community’s top priority is to ensure the programme fulfils its principles for nourishing their children.

The next phase of Nourishing Hawkes Bay aims to create a Knowledge Exchange and Action Network for interested schools, food providers and community agencies to take the findings from Phase One and build interventions in schools and to learn from each other’s experiences in creating school lunches.

It will also undertake vital evaluation of the impact of Ka Ora, Ka Ako. including:

• Interviews with school principals and whānau to understand how Ka Ora, Ka Ako is affecting children’s nutrition and health, school engagement (attendance, behaviours) and whānau wellbeing (food hardship, mana, tino rangatiratanga).
• Mapping four ‘school food ecosystems’ (primary/secondary; in-school/external provider) to understand the systems’ dynamics and how they could be optimised to meet the community’s principles developed in Phase One.