Canada

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Hirad Zafari, president of the Ontario Student Trustees' Association (OSTA), left, and Kourosh Houshmand, public vice president, wear t-shirts for their healthier eating campaign in Toronto on Monday, Oct. 22, 2012. Key Gordon Communications helped design the shirts with the OSTA. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Matthew Sherwood

Student leaders in Ontario say it's time their peers took a stand against the food they face in cafeterias and in the fast food restaurants that often ring schools.

Tired of poor quality food options, they are rolling out a campaign calling on students to boycott fast food for the month of November.

The effort, called "Stick it to fast food" is launching under a provocative banner. Its logo, already emblazoned on T-shirts kids can order, looks both like a fork with a single standing tine, and a hand with the middle finger raised.

"In our school boards all the time we hear that cafeterias aren't good enough, students aren't healthy enough. Obesity rates are high. All these statistics. (But) when it comes to doing something, even the adults don't know what to do," says Hirad Zafari, a Grade 12 student at Toronto's Don Mills Collegiate and president of the Ontario Student Trustees Association.

"So we thought: Why not, as the students who are elected to look out for the best interests of the students, do something to make it better?"

Zafari is a leader of the Stick It campaign, which launches today in Toronto.

Students are being urged to go to the campaign's website, stickittofastfood.org, and sign a pledge to join the boycott. The website will provide information on how to eat a more healthy diet, including some easy-to-make lunch alternatives.

As well, students supporting the campaign can share experiences on the Stick It Facebook page and using the Twitter hashtag, #stickit.

"It's about telling students that we shouldn't be settling for that," Kourosh Houshmand, in Grade 12 at Earl Haig Secondary School in Toronto, says to describe the campaign.

"You have options and here are your options."

Houshmand is a vice-president of the Ontario Student Trustees Association, the collective for students who sit as student representatives on school boards across the province.