Real Food for Real Futures: What School Food Advocacy Taught Me

By: Ruhab Ahmed, Grade 11 Student, Math, Science and Technology (MST) Program, West Humber Collegiate Institute (TDSB), Founding President, Health and Nutrition Club

Founding President of the Health & Nutrition Club, Ruhab Ahmed, presenting the "Real Food for Real Futures" Petition to the club. (2026)

For over 12 years, students do not just eat at school. We learn what food is supposed to be.

I began noticing the food environment around me at my high school in the north west corner of Toronto, including what was easy to grab, what was affordable, and why the healthier option was usually the hardest one to choose.

For many students, healthy eating is talking about a personal choice. But at school, choices are shaped by the environment around us. A student can care about their health and still be surrounded by unhealthy foods. That is why I began thinking less about willpower and more about systems. If we want young people to be healthier, we need school environments that make healthy choices easier, more accessible and more normal. 

In Grade 10, that realization led me to found and be the President of my school's “Health and Nutrition Club”, based on a simple idea connected to “Food as Medicine”: food can support prevention, learning, energy and well being. One of our first projects was the Healthy Cookie Sale, where we baked over 120 hand baked cookies using healthier alternatives and turned it into a school wide event reaching over 1000 students.

The goal was not to only give food, but to start a conversation. We taught students about healthy eating and alternative ingredients. In addition, we also did a Food, Mood & Focus Lab Event for our school’s Wellness Week, which taught students about the effect of food on their mental and physical health. That response showed me that students are willing to eat healthier options when they are accessible, appealing and part of school life.

By Grade 11, I wanted to move from a single school project toward something more structural. In my Social Justice and Equity course, we were asked to identify a problem in our community and act on it. I kept on returning to school food. That resulting in me starting “Real Food for Real Futures”, a student led petition asking for stronger, healthier school food environments in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). It has gathered over 800 signatures. 

What surprised me the most was not only that people supported the petition. It was how many students and community members already understood the issue. Many had noticed the same things but had not always had a place to say them. That taught me one of my first lessons in advocacy: sometimes change can begin by naming something others have been quietly feeling too.

Building the petition also changed how I understood advocacy. At first, I thought advocacy meant having a strong opinion and asking for change. But now I learnt that it is also about listening carefully from the people around you. School food is affected by funding, contracts, staffing and policies, and student participation. Students live inside these systems everyday. We notice what food is available, what feels affordable, and what words during a short lunch break.

That lived experience matters. Reports and policies are important, but they can’t always show what a food environment feels like in daily school life. Students' voices can help connect data to real life because we bring a boots on the ground perspective. This is why young people should be included early in school food conversations, not only after decisions have already been made.

This is also where I learned to be careful with the word equity. I used to think equity in school food only meant making sure every student could have a meal. Access matters, but it is not the whole picture. Equity also means asking whether food is nourishing, culturally respectful, affordable and realistic during the school day. Real equity must mean nutrition, not only availability.

School food is usually discussed as something that affects students during the school day, including focus, energy, mood, learning and physical health. But I think its impact can reach much further than that. If students spend over 12 years in school environments where nutritious food is normal and accessible , those years can help shape lifelong habits. Healthy school food is not only short term support. It is a long term investment in healthier adults and a future health system built more on prevention than reaction. 

My school based advocacy also includes larger youth advocacy. Through joining UNICEF Canada’s 2026 Youth Advocacy Program, I had the opportunity to contribute youth reflections and co-lead question facilitation alongside UNICEF Canada’s Deputy Director of Policy and Research during the Students Commission of Canada’s Against the Current Knowledge Exchange, in a session connected to youth well being data and UNICEF Canada’s Report Card 20. I also attended the Coalition for Healthy School Food’s webinar on London (England’s)’s Universal School Food Programs: Lessons for Canadian Cities, which helped me think more deeply about how systems shape youths' futures

Looking Ahead

That national conversation is exactly what the Coalition for Healthy School Food is working towards: a healthy national school food program that reaches students across Canada. Canada has an important opportunity to build school food programs that include youth experiences at the center. 

My message to other students is simple: start close to home, Look honestly at the food environment in your own school. Ask your classmates what they notice. Start a club, petition, conversation, or project!

To educators, families, policymakers and community members: make space for student voice in school food decisions. Students are not only recipients of school food programs. They can be partners in actually shaping them as well. 

School food advocacy has taught me that young people are already thinking about health, equity, prevention and the systems that shape and affect our futures. A school meal may only last a few minutes, but the healthy habits, dignity and possibilities it creates can last a lifetime.