STUDENTS at Creek Street Christian College brought 'nude lunchboxes' to school on Friday as part of a government initiative to encourage healthy and sustainable living.
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National Nude Food Day challenges students to avoid anything that has to be thrown away after consumption.
Fruit, nuts and sandwiches in washable containers were the foods of choice, in place of museli bars, yoghurt and other packaged snacks.
Classes competed with each other to see who could produce the least amount of rubbish.
The school's health coordinator Karen Douglass said Nude Food Day was an opportunity to encourage parents and children to focus on healthy food and food packaging.
"It's very challenging, as you can imagine, it's not very interesting to bring a lunchbox full of fruit," she said.
Prior to the day, a dietitian from Bendigo Health visited the school to educate students about the sorts of foods they could bring.
"A lot of kids had to put things in containers which they could take home and wash and re-use," Ms Douglass said.
"The little kids were really into it as you can imagine."
Ms Douglass acknowledged Nude Food Day was probably just as big a challenge for the parents, who had to put more thought into their children's lunches.
"It's not (the children) that pack the lunch but it's them that influence what goes in the lunchbox," she said.
"It's very tricky, there has to be quick and easy ideas.
"It's hard to get that balance between convenience and time in the morning."
The nude food challenge complements Creek Street Christian College's healthy eating policy, which forbids students from bringing lollies, chocolate or sweet drinks.
"Kids are allowed to order out lunches, but they’re not allowed to order sweet things," Ms Douglass said.
She said failure to comply could result in students having to 'speak to the principal'.
The school planted a "kitchen garden" last year and teaches healthy eating from prep level.
"The more we promote (healthy eating) and the more we develop it as being a fun thing to do and just keep it in our heads, the more we’ll see a change in culture – hopefully, that’s all we can hope," Ms Douglass said.
"We’re so aware of the obesity problem."