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HEALTH

New call for condom machines in schools

The head of a French charity fighting Aids has called on the government to install free condom machines in schools to help prevent the spread of the disease. The government also announced it will authorize the use of home HIV test kits.

Published: 5 April 2013 11:17 CEST
New call for condom machines in schools

Pierre Bergé, president of Sidaction (Aids action) has asked the Minister of Education to take steps to make sure condoms are freely available in Lyceés and colleges across France.

“I ask the government, when are we finally going to have free condoms in schools? And when we are going to have proper sex education for Aids?,” Bergé told RTL.

The charity's president is not the first to demand contraceptives be freely available to youngsters in French schools.

The idea was first put forward as far back as 1992, and in 2006 a government circular proposed the installation of vending machines in schools, but it has not been widely implemented.

Where machines have been installed in schools, pupils are often required to pay for them.

“Today in some schools, if a teenager wants a condom, they have to go and ask the nurse.  That’s an easy thing to do, as you can imagine,” said Bergé sarcastically.

Vincent Peillon, the Minister of Education appears to be onside, and has accepted that France “needs to find a way to do better” on the issue of youngsters accessing contraceptives.

However, not all school health workers are convinced, and some believe free distribution of condoms would simply play into the hands of school trouble makers.

“We often see the school yard littered with condoms that have been used as water bombs,” a school nurse called Martine told Europe1 radio.

She believes going through a school medical professional is still the best way for youngsters to get hold of contraceptives.

“The students never read how to use a condom. We are able to show them,” she added.

Some in the teaching profession also doubt the worth of the machines.

The headteacher of one Paris school with a condom machine told Le Figaro: “The usefulness of these machines is limited. We hardly ever need to restock them because students dare not buy them on school premises.”

Home test kits authorised

Another measure to battle the spread of Aids that the French government announced it will implement is the introduction of HIV test kits that can be used at home.

There are an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 living in France who are infected with HIV but have no idea. This group of people are in turn believed to responsible for 70 percent of new cases of HIV each year.

France's National Council of Aids says home test kits could prevent 400 new infections each year.

The country's Health Minister Marisol Touraine gave the green light on Friday to authorize the use of the home kits.

It is expected they will soon be available to buy just as in the United States.

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FOOD AND DRINK

Fruit and chocolate: What French doctors say children should eat

France takes its food seriously, and that includes healthy eating guidelines for children. French kids get high-quality, nutritionally balanced school lunches and now the country's health watchdog has issued guidelines for parents on what to feed their kids.

Published: 11 September 2024 14:00 CEST
Fruit and chocolate: What French doctors say children should eat

The public health agency Santé Publique France has issued a range of healthy eating recommendations for parents of children aged between four and 11.

“Dietary recommendations for children aged 4 to 11 may be subject to a certain lack of awareness or preconceived ideas,” Anne-Juliette Serry, head of the nutrition and physical activity unit at SPF said.

“While parents tend to raise the subject naturally with health professionals in the case of toddlers, this is less the case when children start to grow up.”

Overall, the guidelines are similar to those in place for school lunches. Schools provide a hot three-course meal for all pupils at lunchtime, with government guidelines in place to cover the nutritional content.

But SPF is also concerned about what children eat – and how they eat – at home. So here’s what French authorities say children should be eating;

Five-a-day – but don’t count fruit juice

Children need to get used to eating “fruit and vegetables at meals every day”, SPF said – regardless of whether they are, “fresh, frozen or canned, raw or cooked, plain or prepared”.

But it said that fruit juices, which contain sugars and are low in fibre, “do not count as a daily portion of fruit and vegetables”.

Fruit juice consumption should be limited to half a glass a day for children up to the age of 11, with a maximum of one glass for older children. Squeezed fruit is preferable in all cases.

Snacks

The goûter – the afternoon snack, typically eaten after school – is an institution for French kids (and plenty of adults) and SPF wisely does not try to suggest ditching it.

But SPF – citing the Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire, de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail (Anses) and the Haut Conseil de la santé publique – recommends limiting the daily intake of viennoiseries such as croissants and pains au chocolat (or chocolatines, per right-thinking people in southwest France).

Instead, it suggests giving children, “bread with a few squares of chocolate or a little butter or jam, fresh fruit or compote or a dairy product”.

READ ALSO Le goûter: The importance of the afternoon snack in France

If you buy in pre-packaged cookies or snacks, avoid ones with a Nutri-Score E.

Three dairy products a day

Children and adolescents should consume up to three dairy products a day, SPF said, for their calcium intake, compared with two for adults. Milk, yoghurt and cheese are all recommended.

READ ALSO Cheese in numbers: France’s obsession with fromage

But children under five years of age should not consume raw milk, or cheeses made from raw milk (except Emmental or Comté), due to the risk of infection, the agency warned.

Watch your portion sizes

Portion sizes should be adapted to those of adults. It’s recommended that children between the ages of four and six have portions that are half that of an adult, with quantities increasing progressively until children are eating adult portions from the age of 11.

READ ALSO Are packed lunches really banned in French schools?

Table manners

The agency doesn’t just concern itself with what children eat, but how they eat, saying that childhood is “the time when benchmarks and habits are set that will stay with us into adulthood”. 

It “encourages parent/child interaction as much as possible, by eating together at the table and avoiding screens at mealtimes.” 

Where possible, it recommends cooking together.

The aim of the campaign is to “facilitate the adoption of good practices in everyday household life, and ultimately reduce the incidence of illnesses and medical conditions that can be induced by inappropriate eating habits”.

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