Table 5.

Information related to foods sold at school in a survey of ninety purposively selected poorly resourced schools (ten in each of the nine provinces) in South Africa, March–October 2010

	n	%
Parents’ feelings towards food being sold (n 731)
It is unhealthy/must be healthy	238	32
Not happy/not good/don't want them	128	18
Cleanliness is a problem	20	3
Good/happy/okay	113	15
No problem with food sold	47	6
No tuck shop or vendors at child's school	48	7
Variety of answers; illegible; don't know	137	19
Parents’ thoughts on ways to improve food being sold (n 731)
Sell fruit	179	24
Sell healthy food/no unhealthy food	127	17
Build shelter for vendors; stall must be clean; food must be covered and not exposed to sun; train and monitor the food vendors; need to be controlled	137	19
Ban them	20	3
Nothing needs to change	20	3
No tuck shop or vendors at child's school	48	7
Variety of answers; illegible; don't know	200	27
Parents’ advice to children on which foods to buy (for those whose children take money to school) (n 574)
Buy fruit	215	37
Buy healthy foods	132	23
Do not buy unhealthy foods	134	23
No advice/their choice	59	10
Variety of answers; illegible; don't know	34	6
School has rules on the following* (n 85)
Cleanliness of ‘food stall’	38	45
Food safety of foods sold	32	38
Type of foods sold by food vendors	31	36
Storage of foods sold	30	35
Preparation of foods sold	26	31
Source of foods sold	23	27

*According to the school principal.