Legislation passed Thursday at Queen’s Park will help students make healthier eating choices, by removing unhealthy ones currently available in schools.

The legislation will require schools to drop food items from vending machines and cafeterias that contain trans fat. Some foods contain natural amounts of trans fat, including milk, and they will be allowed.

But the basic thrust is to get trans fat out of the choices available to students at school. It’s a healthy development, if past due, and one that conforms with societal efforts to not only remove trans fat from food choices, but also other disease causing substances, such as cigarettes.

Entire cities are banning the use of trans fat in food preparation, so what the government is doing is not revolutionary. But it is a good bandwagon to hop on.

Food available in schools has long been a contentious issue. Boards allowed vending machines, and specific products to be sold, as a way of raising funds from corporations. Questions about the health impact of chips and pop being lunch choices were often secondary to financial considerations for cash-strapped boards.

With the rise of conditions like obesity and diabetes in children, and an absence of physical activity in schools, what students are eating while at school can no longer be ignored.

Queen’s Park is showing leadership in taking this action. Critics of the move may say this is another step on the road to a nanny state, but that’s not the case. This is a reasonable, responsible measure to a serious, and growing, problem.

According to reports, obesity among young children has nearly tripled over the past 25 years. This will come as no surprise to most parents and others who see this problem close up.

Add the general inactivity of today’s kids, immersed in video games, the Internet and the latest ‘Idol’ show, and the food kids are consuming is a huge concern,

Without government action, school boards across the province may be moved to enact their own bans, with a mixed system evolving across the province. Direction from Queen’s Park ensures all students benefit from the removal of trans fat.

It’s about time.