A Study On Legal Regulation Of School Food Safety

In2011, a survey on nutrition status of rural students by China Development Research Foundation shows that students are in the status of serious shortage of nutrition in poverty areas in the Midwest. Report points out that "medical examination for1458students (age from10-13) in Qinghai, Yunnan, Guangxi, Ningxia shows that nearly12of100rural children grow stunted, and that they are6to15cm lower than city children in height, and7to15kg lower in weight than the same age city children. The report appeals to the government that investment to the School Feeding Program should be increased. Government should fulfill the responsibility of implementation of the School Feeding Program so that more students can have opportunity to enjoy nutritional meals. In order to solve above problems, Chinese central government start to implement the School Feeding Program from autumn of2011. Every year central government allocates16billion yuan to solve the nutrition problem of26million rural students.Firstly, this thesis defines the concept of student nutrition meal:in order to solve the nutrition problems and to improve health condition of students (especially rural students), government at all levels using national funds provides nutritional, healthy and safety diets to students. The meals must be cooked in strict sanitary conditions and under the guidance of scientific nutrition knowledge.Since the implementation of School Feeding Program, many students have the chance to enjoy the free lunch, their physical quality get improved at some extent. However, under the success of achievements, many problems start to occur. In the second part, this thesis states the problems from the legislation and practice:1) lacking of the specific regulations;2) the food safety problem is serious, and many students fall ill after taking the unsafe lunch;3) balanced diet nutrition standard is not clear, so the student physical quality improvement is not obvious;4) in ingredients purchasing progress, bidding is almost ignored so the ingredients are inferior in quality;5) government funds are misused;6) regulatory system is not strict, and so on. The third part introduced the School Lunch Program of the United States and India. In1946, the United States announced the National School Lunch Act, United States Department of Agriculture take charge of the National School Lunch Program. When implementing the program, students from different income families get different subsidies; and government formulate food safety instruction manual; and the Act stipulates nutrition standards and strict regulatory measures. In India, the Supreme Court gave crucial Court orders on mid-day meals in2001:the state government/union Territories implement the Mid Day Meal Scheme by providing every child in every government and government assisted primary schools with a prepared mid day meal with a minimum nutritive content of300calories and8-12grams of protein each day of school for a minimum of200days. In2006, the nutrition standard was revised to450calories and12grams of protein, In India, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as service providers have played great role in the implementation of Mid Day Meal Scheme.The final part brings forward some suggestions for the perfection of School Feeding system in China:integrating the available rules and establishing the uniform provisions for funds, nutrition standards and supervision; improving and perfecting the management system, such as specialized department, strict nutrition standards, nutrition education for parents and students; improving and perfecting the supervision system, such as information publication, strengthening the role of social organizations and the parents committee and evaluation of program.