For the first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) has advised all schools worldwide to promote a healthy environment for children by providing them with nutritious food.
In line with this, the WHO recently released a new global guideline on evidence-based policies and interventions to create healthy school food environments.
The WHO is also advising countries to adopt a whole-school approach to ensure that food and beverages provided in schools are healthy and nutritious.
WHO warns of increasing childhood obesity
The new global guideline was released as the WHO warned that childhood obesity is rising globally, while countries are still battling undernutrition.
WHO said schools are on the front line of what it calls the “double burden” of malnutrition.
In its latest data in 2025, about 188 million school-aged children and adolescents were living with obesity worldwide, overtaking the number of underweight children.
Childhood obesity raises the risk of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, stroke and other conditions in adulthood.
The WHO emphasizes that schools worldwide should adhere to these guidelines to help form lifelong healthy eating habits and address health and nutrition inequities.
The organisation added that about 466 million children receive school meals globally, but information on the nutritional value of these meals remains scarce.
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What are WHO’s new food guidelines?
Under the WHO’s new guidelines, schools are recommended to set standards or rules.
Under these, schools must increase the availability, purchase, and consumption of healthy beverages, while limiting unhealthy options such as sugars, saturated fats and sodium.
It also advised schools to implement “nudging interventions” to encourage children to select, purchase, and consume healthier foods and beverages.
These interventions can include changes in the packaging, portion, or price of food options for children.
“The food children eat at school, and the environments that shape what they eat, can have a profound impact on their learning, and lifelong consequences for their health and well-being,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“Getting nutrition right at school is critical for preventing disease later in life and creating healthier adults,” he added.
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