The new school year will bring changes to the rules governing food served and sold to children in schools and preschools. The new regulations are meant to reduce the availability of products with low nutritional value and improve the quality of meals. Excess body weight affects 33 percent of Polish children of early primary-school age, while 15 percent of eight-year-olds have obesity. Experts point out that children’s food choices are influenced not only by their home and school environments but, increasingly as they grow older, also by food availability, advertising, social media and their peers.
“The regulation on school snack shops, which will come into force on 1 September, is a good step towards creating a healthy food environment,” said Dr Anna Liber, a paediatrician and gastroenterologist, and Head of the Department of Nutrition at the Institute of Mother and Child (IMC), speaking to Newseria. “It addresses two areas: the meals children receive at school – how they should be composed and balanced – and the range of products available in school snack shops. These shops are popular with children, and what they choose for their break-time snack, and sometimes even for lunch, often depends on what is available there.”
From 1 September 2026, the rules governing products sold in school snack shops and vending machines, as well as meals served in canteens, will change. Products previously falling within the “other” category will no longer be sold. These include, for example, sweets with reduced sugar content or no added sugar but containing sweeteners. The permitted sugar content in dairy and cereal products and plant-based drinks has also been reduced to 10 g per 100 g or 100 ml. For drinks prepared on site, the limit will fall from 10 g to 5 g per 250 ml.
The changes will also apply to school canteens. A fully plant-based lunch using pulses as a key ingredient will have to be served at least once a week, while soups based on vegetable stock will have to be prepared at least twice a week.
“Regulating what children eat outside school is more challenging,” said Dr Liber. “Children who are old enough to make their own way home often stop at local shops and make their own choices there. I think one measure that can be taken, and which many countries have already introduced, is to regulate food advertising and marketing, for example by banning the use of cartoon characters on sweet snacks, as they are highly appealing to children. Restricting posters advertising sugary drinks and processed foods is also a step towards reducing the impact of marketing on children’s food choices, because children are more susceptible to advertising than adults.”
The World Health Organization points out that food marketing aimed at children primarily promotes products high in saturated fat, sugar and salt. Advertisements and packaging use, among other things, popular characters, celebrities and athletes, as well as gifts, competitions and games. According to the WHO, such practices influence children’s food preferences and choices, as well as what they ask their parents to buy.
In one study, children aged four to six were given the same breakfast cereal to taste, but some of them saw packaging featuring a popular animated character. In this group, the children rated the taste of the cereal at an average of 4.70 on a five-point scale, compared with 4.16 among children who saw packaging without the character. Another study involving children aged six to nine found that products featuring familiar characters attracted their attention more often and for longer than the same products without such elements.
“If we create an environment in which it is easier for children to make healthier choices, we will have a better chance of them doing so,” said the IMC expert. “One valuable initiative, for example, is to make free water available in every school. This significantly reduces sales of sugary drinks. Water can also be made available on school sports grounds or playgrounds, and that is a step in the right direction.”
According to the nationwide DINO-PL study conducted in 2022–2023, one in three children aged seven to nine drank sugary beverages on most days of the week or every day. One in four ate sweet snacks just as frequently.
A year-long study involving nearly 1,300 primary-school children in Rotterdam promoted drinking water in some of the participating schools. Among children covered by the programme, consumption of sugary drinks was, on average, 0.19 litres per day lower than in the control group.
“There is growing awareness that highly processed food increases the risk of disease,” said Dr Liber. “People whose diets contain large amounts of it are more likely to become overweight and obese and, as a consequence, develop high blood pressure, heart disease or atherosclerosis.”
According to the 2022–2024 COSI study, 36 percent of boys and 30 percent of girls of early primary-school age had excess body weight. A review of 20 studies involving children and adolescents, published in 2026, found a link between greater consumption of ultra-processed foods and, among other things, more frequent symptoms of depression and anxiety and sleep disorders.
“The family environment is the first place where children’s food choices are shaped,” said the expert. “Parents guide children through the world of flavours and food textures, but they also teach them how often to eat, what portion sizes to choose and what kind of atmosphere meals should be eaten in. The earliest stage of life is critical. The first few years are when eating habits are formed and new flavours are discovered, but they are also a period of metabolic programming.”
In the GECKO Drenthe study, researchers analysed the diets of more than 2,500 children from the age of seven months to three years and subsequently examined their eating habits at the age of 10–11. They found that dietary patterns in early childhood were associated with later habits, with the strongest relationship observed for sugary drinks.
“We know that children from families with lower socioeconomic status and children living in rural areas are more likely to have obesity,” said the paediatrician. “These children more often eat highly processed foods, drink sugary beverages and eat snacks. One explanation is simply that this type of food is cheap. Healthy food and high-quality products can be more expensive.”
The 2022–2024 COSI study shows a similar relationship. In Poland, the prevalence of obesity was 7.3 percentage points higher among children whose parents had a low to medium level of education than among children whose parents had a high level of education. Differences in the prevalence of obesity associated with parental level of education were recorded in 18 of the 30 countries studied.
“If we are knowledgeable about nutrition, we can use basic, locally available products – vegetables, fruit, eggs or groats – to prepare a healthy, nutritious meal, and it does not have to be expensive,” said Dr Liber. “But if we go into a shop wanting to buy something quickly, a chocolate bar will probably be cheaper than a nutritious sandwich. There is another difficulty as well: if we choose basic products, which do not have to be very expensive, preparing them takes time. Healthy eating often takes more effort, and I think that today this is one of the factors that leads both children and adults to frequently choose ready-made food.”
The Institute of Mother and Child is participating in the B-Challenged project, which aims to improve conditions for active outdoor play and foster healthy eating habits among children aged six to twelve. As part of the project, experts will identify factors that hinder and facilitate outdoor activity and then co-design and implement measures aimed at changing the physical and social environment, working closely with children and adult stakeholders. B-Challenged focuses on selected districts in European cities, including Warsaw (Praga-Północ), Amsterdam and Zaragoza. The solutions introduced there will provide models that can then be replicated in other regions.