Onishchenko backed the idea of removing pizza from Russian school cafeterias

Academician backs removing pizza from school menus

Gennady Onishchenko, an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and deputy president of the Russian Academy of Education, supported the idea of removing pizza from the menus of Russian schools, Gazeta.Ru reported, citing his remarks to RIA Novosti. In his view, the fight against pizza's popularity among children should be waged not through outright bans but by fostering a culture of healthy eating. «I fully agree with [presidential adviser Elena] Yampolskaya that pizza should not be present in schools... Children are hooked on this notorious pizza. We should not fight it with frontal assaults, but by cultivating a culture of eating,» the academician is quoted as saying.

Textbooks as a tool instead of bans

Onishchenko recalled that school textbooks on proper child nutrition, edited by him, have recently been republished. These books, he said, should become «a tool to make my and Yampolskaya's dream come true in the foreseeable future.» Thus, the academician essentially shares the presidential adviser's goal but proposes a different path to it — an educational one rather than a prohibitive one.

Where the discussion began

The initiative has been discussed in several stages, and the participants' positions differ. On November 5, Elena Yampolskaya saidthat pizza should not be included in school cafeteria menus because it is not healthy food for children; at the same time, according to her, parents have the right to allow their child to eat pizza — it is another matter when it is sold in school buffets. Even earlier, civic activist Vitaly Borodin proposed banning the sale of pizza in Russia, calling it «soft power in a cardboard box» and a threat to traditional values; he advocated banning pizza sales in educational institutions and restricting foreign names in public catering. The State Duma, for its part, statedthat there is nothing wrong with pizza.