HOME ECONOMICS ‘SHOULD BE COMPULSORY’

HOME economics being made a compulsory subject up to Junior Cert level would help combat childhood obesity, a new cross-party report is set to recommend.

The report by the Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs is also set to urge the Government to restrict junk food advertising, ban vending machines in schools and beef up the powers of local authorities to stop fastfood outlets from opening near schools.

The report, due out tomorrow, is expected to make 20 key recommendations for tackling the growing obesity problem among our children.

It comes only a week after research by the Economic and Social Research Institute found that 17% of more than 7,500 nine-year-olds studied were overweight, while 5% were obese.

Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell, committee chair, is understood to warn in the report that ‘tackling childhood obesity must be a priority, given the impact obesity can have on all aspects of health for our younger generations, both now and into their future’.

One of the committee’s key recommendations is that Government ‘should consider the introduction of home economics as a compulsory subject on the junior cycle curriculum for post-primary schools’.

During the course of its hearings on this topic this year, the committee heard from representatives for home economics teachers in May that it should be ‘compulsory for all post-primary students in Ireland’ as it would put ‘the food literacy of our young people at the forefront of the agenda’.

The committee also heard the subject is compulsory for students in the junior cycle equivalent in countries such as South Korea, Iceland, Japan and Finland in order to ‘teach young people nutrition and food skills’.

While the TDs and senators acknowledge in the report that healthy eating is included as an aspect of the existing Social, Personal and Health Education curriculum, it also points to 2016 research which demonstrates ‘learning to cook as a young person is positively related to cooking confidence, and improved health and diet quality in later life’.

Acknowledging concerns from the Department of Education about possible ‘curriculum overload’, the committee is set to recommend that home economics should be made compulsory on a ‘phased basis’ to avoid this issue arising.

Also recommended in this new report is that Government should ‘enhance local planning powers... to prevent the opening of new fast-food outlets within a defined vicinity of schools, and examine how best to enforce such regulations’.

The committee has noted the work of the ‘No Fry Zone 4 Kids’ group, which is calling for ‘no fry zones’ to be implemented in all County Development Plans around the country. The report is understood to point to data from a 2015 study which shows ‘there are, on average, 4.03 fast-food outlets within a 1km radius of all Irish schools’.

It also urges the Government to consider introducing a ban on vending machines in schools and to ensure no school is ‘reliant on proceeds’ from them as an income.

The report also rounds on the advertising and marketing of junk food products geared towards children, and the politicians echo the Irish Heart Foundation’s call for stricter regulation in this area. The committee is recommending the Government works with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland to amend regulations in relation to the advertising and marketing of unhealthy foods to children.

Comment – Page 14 emmajane.hade@dailymail.ie

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