The Lancet Planetary Health, 18 November 2024

Planet-friendly school meals: opportunities to improve children’s health and leverage change in food systems

Food systems are facing a global crisis. Most countries are falling behind rather than progressing toward achieving the seven global nutrition targets set for 2030, while unsustainable food production and consumption patterns have contributed to depletion and pollution of natural resources and climate change, further compromising food security and nutrition. Children are disproportionately affected with 1 billion children at high risk of food insecurity. Low-income countries will be the most affected by these changes despite having contributed the least.

Planet-friendly school meals, defined as programmes delivering equitable and healthy foods for children, produced in ways that do not pollute or overexploit natural resources and protect biodiversity, are a platform to tackle some of these food system challenges. School meals, mostly state-funded, reach 418 million children every day worldwide4 offering an opportunity to improve diet quality, and ultimately nutrition and health, and act as a catalyst for food systems transformation contributing to meeting global climate, food, and biodiversity goals.