National School Nutrition Policy.

This Policy, in accordance with Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and based on the right of the children to nutritious food, and the right to good nutrition, defines a framework for ensuring good nutrition and healthy lifestyles to students, and for promoting good eating behaviours and a physically active lifestyle among students, in compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals. The Policy aims at achieving the following objectives: reducing the increasing rates of obesity; increasing physical activity and balanced eating among the student population by 2030; development of standards and guidelines for the nutritional assessment and monitoring of students; providing the school-age population with safe and nutritionally adequate meals; strengthening the alleviation of short-term hunger, with special focus on poor and vulnerable Jamaican students; establishing partnerships with small farmers, in order to provide a sustainable source of locally produced foods; promoting the principles of food security, nutritional health and equity; contributing to improvements in the nutritional knowledge of children and their families. The Policy defines specific strategies and measures to accomplish its goals, including: regulating the marketing of foods and beverages around the school environment; increase the level linkages between the agricultural sector and the schools for making available in schools locally produced foods; increase the availability of locally grown fruits available in schools; strengthening of gender consideration in dietary provisions.