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| Calorie Café |
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| The TAF club students
are given about 3,500 calorie
cash for 10 days. |
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Calorie Café
is Blangah Rise Primary School’s latest social enterprise
whereby the numeric figures next to the food items on
the stall display boards in the school canteen are caloric
values rather than monetary values.
Overweight students (who form the Trim-And-Fit [TAF] club)
are issued calorie cash for their recess meals fortnightly.
The amount of calorie cash assigned to them is based on
their age and gender profile.
On average, a child from the TAF club receives 3,500 calorie
cash for 10 days, which means he has to carefully select
his diet every day. Three hundred and fifty calories per
day would be a wise choice, otherwise he will run out
of calorie cash.
There are seven stalls altogether. The food item with
the highest caloric value is the big pau, which has 400
calories (compare this to a Big Mac which contains 500
calories and chicken rice which has 700 calories). On
the other hand, mineral water has zero calories.
The calorie cash are to be used to pay for their food
during recess, in addition to real cash.
Pupils with acceptable weight are issued a wrist band
which states “I’m Trim & Fit”. This
is how the stall operators distinguish them from the TAF
students. Non-TAF club students are not issued calorie
cash and they just pay for their meals with real cash.
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| There are four
denominations of calorie cash — 50 calories,
100 calories, 200 calories and 500 calories.
These were designed and printed in-house. |
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The size and layout of the café, as well as the
number of tables and benches are the same as that of other
school canteens. However, in addition to the “calorie
in” (food consumption) area, the Calorie Café
also has a “calorie out” area where gym equipment
such as treadmills, cycling machines and rowing machines
is stationed. All the equipment comes with LCD panels
that indicate the number of calories being burnt as the
pupils use them.
The pupils learn that while consuming calories is easy,
burning them is difficult. For example, they need to pedal
on the cycling machine for several minutes just to burn
100 calories.
Shared a primary six student, Ng Teng Yang, “It
was difficult in the beginning as I could not choose to
eat the food items that I like, which are generally high
in caloric values. But I’m used to it now. In fact,
I’m thankful to the school for initiating this project
as I’m more disciplined in my choice of a healthy
diet.”
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| The numeral figures
next to the food items on the display boards
are caloric values. |
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And why is the Calorie Café considered a social
enterprise? It is run by a group of student leaders who
take turns to be at the stalls to help monitor the transactions.
For example, they ensure that the stall operators insist
on receiving calorie cash from pupils without wrist bands.
In addition, the student leaders help TAF students to
choose their food, speed up computations and advise stall
operators when they are in doubt. They also refer students
who have run out of calorie cash to the general office
where the clerks will issue them with some calorie cash.
In such cases, the students’ teachers will be notified
and they will either counsel the students or telephone
their parents.
The Calorie Café concept was the brainchild of
Vice-Principal
Goh Zensen.
Sharing about what sparked off the Calorie Café
idea, Mr Goh said, “I visited a health exhibition
at the World Trade Centre several years ago. I thought
I saw display boards with several delicious food items
in pictorial form with their prices next to them. When
I went nearer to them, I was astonished to realise that
the figures were not prices but calories. That was how
I got my inspiration.”
Mr Goh proposed the café concept to his staff at
last year’s year-end staff meeting during which
teachers had to ideate on ways to address the school’s
concerns with the Ministry of Education’s Innovation
and Enterprise tenet in mind. The staff were excited about
the notion and the Health Education Co-ordinator, Mrs
Ann Tham, volunteered to spearhead the project with her
team.
STRATEGIC
PARTNER — HPB
The Health Promotion Board loaned the school
display panels. It also provided dieticians
who worked out the caloric values of all the
food in the canteen and advised the canteen
operators on healthy ways of cooking. The
dieticians also gave a talk to pupils and
parents on low-calorie cooking and eating
out. |
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By
Goh Zensen, Blangah Rise Primary School
Next: Holistic approach
to energy conservation |
