Persuading young people to eat - let alone eat healthily - is an increasinglytough challenge for schools. And some are faring better than others, writesSylvia Thompson

On weekday lunchtimes, the delicatessens and supermarket in the Dublin suburb where I live are thronged with boys from the local post-primary school buying sausages, sausage rolls, doughnuts, fizzy drinks and the occasional salad roll and piece of fruit. Just a sample, I know, but nonetheless one that neatly captures how the so-called deli counters pander to the tastes of those looking for fast, easy-to-eat food with a quick sugar high thrown in.

Community dietitians in health promotion units are well aware of the poor nutritional value of much of the food sold in filling stations and convenience stores up and down the country. Yet encouraging stores to include healthy options is somewhat beyond the experts' brief. Meanwhile, teenagers will continue to buy high-fat or high-sugar snacks with low nutritional value, even though 57 per cent of them believe they have healthy, balanced diets, according to the recent Irish Times Youth Poll.

The National Health and Lifestyles Surveys in April painted a bleaker picture of what young people are eating. A self- reported survey, it found that only 14 per cent of boys and 17 per cent of girls ate vegetables more than once a day, while 14 per cent of boys and 12 per cent of girls either never ate vegetables or ate them less than once a week. Fruit and vegetable consumption among children was down 50 per cent on the previous survey in 1998.

The same survey reported that 15 per cent of children said they never had breakfast during the week and that 7 per cent said they never had lunch during the week. The provision of breakfast in some schools, particularly those in disadvantaged areas, is intended to tackle this serious lack of nourishment in some children before they start classes. But there is another issue at stake here that even some schools in middle-class and upper-middle-class areas are slow to tackle: the provision of healthy meals and snacks in school canteens and tuck-shops.

How can second-level students be encouraged to eat more healthily if school canteens offer only the same boring choice of packet soup, filled rolls, shrivelled apples and green bananas day in, day out? How can post-primary students fail to resist chocolate bars, sweets and crisps if the tuck-shop sells them? How can teenagers be expected to avoid fizzy drinks if the school vending-machines are selling them? And how can those same students be expected to drink water when there are no water fountains in their schools?

A straw-poll of post-primary schools carried out for this article (see panel) reveals a mixed bag of food options offered by secondary schools to our young people. There are, of course, exemplary institutions but there are also some fairly well-to-do schools offering poor lunch menus or indeed none at all. One prominent girls' school in Dublin declined to have its food and drink provisions mentioned in our ad hoc survey. It's not surprising, because the choice offered was rather spartan.

"Most schools are trying to improve the school food by offering healthier, non- processed food, but when the students show little interest in what's on offer, they give in to the more popular, less healthy options," says Eleanor Petrie, president of the National Parents' Council (Post-Primary).

"However, a lot of schools are getting rid of vending-machines, which we encourage. In terms of tuck-shops, we'd prefer if they didn't supply the high-calorie, quick-fix snacks which play havoc with the students' blood sugar levels. But, the problem is that high-protein foods, such as cheese, rarely come in easy-to-buy packages."

The school canteen at St Andrew's College, Booterstown, Co Dublin has an extensive mid-morning snack and lunch menu available to second-level students.

"I encourage the students to try new items on the lunch menu but sometimes, no matter how hard you try to encourage them to go for the more nutritious meal, they will choose what you don't want them to choose. Peer pressure plays a big part in what they eat, just as it does on other aspects of their lives," explains Liz Powderly, catering manager at St Andrew's College.

She adds that removing some of the less healthy options can simply cause a decline in the numbers of students taking lunch.

Yvonne McGlynn, the home economics teacher at Clifden Community School, Co Galway, is frank about the challenges she faces in encouraging healthier eating among the student population there.

"There is no school canteen [the students are not allowed into the town of Clifden at lunchtime] and the majority of students bring in their own lunches, but crisps, sweets and soft drinks are available in the tuck-shop," she says. "And we do notice problems with hyperactivity in the afternoon classes. And I am aware that some of the students will have a weight problem later in life.

"I don't believe students are poorly informed about healthy eating. Maybe they have too much information. The problem is that junk food is quick and easy to eat."

Interestingly, she mentions a second- year project carried out with the Western Health Board about two years ago in which the students were offered a choice of healthy foods and junk food for lunch. Half of them chose the healthy options because they were presented to look tasty.

The trick of making healthy food look tasty and easy to eat seems to have been carried off by Sutton Park School chef Deirdre O'Brien. This year, the school has introduced a ban on crisps, chocolates and fizzy drinks. Home-made brown and white bread and an array of home-made cakes and breakfast bars are on offer instead.

"The students love the home-made cakes and flapjacks and we find that they aren't hyper in the afternoon," she says.