VICTORIA will become the first state to ban the sale of lollies in government schools.

Victorian Education Minister Lynne Kosky today announced that all government schools would be asked to stop selling confectionary by the beginning of the 2009 school year.

The ban builds on moves to stop the sale of soft drinks from next year.

Ms Kosky today also announced Victoria would follow Queensland and NSW to offer guidelines for schools to promote a healthy diet.

Under the Healthy Canteens plan, government schools would be forced to encourage consumption of bread, vegetables, fruit and water.

The schools would also be told to carefully select full-fat dairy products, processed meats, cakes and oils and some snack food.

Food including deep fried and pastry-based goods, potato chips and ice-cream as well as some cakes would only be available only twice per term.

Non-government schools would not be subject to the policy changes but would be urged to follow the guidelines, Ms Kosky's spokesman Tim Mitchell said.

Premier Steve Bracks said Australia was one of the most obese nations in the world.

"We're second on the world scale. It's not a silver medal we want. We'd prefer to be well down the bottom, not well up the top in terms of obesity.

"The messages we want to send are that healthy eating is the way forward. That's why we'll be banning confectionary. That's why we're banning fatty foods except for a couple days in a term. That's why we've already banned soft drink," he said.

Australian Medical Association's Victoria president Mark Yates said he was concerned at the delay in introducing the bans.

He said Australia was in an "obesity crisis" and the Victorian government should immediately enforce the ban across all schools.

"We call on families and schools themselves to bring effect to this immediately," Dr Yates said.

He said the new policy would create health and educational benefits for children who ate a poor diet.

Lecturer in nutrition at Monash University Claire Palermo welcomed the changes, but said they were only part of the solution to problems with obesity.

Ms Palermo said kids ate about two thirds of their diet away from school, and that should also be healthier.

Victorian Liberal Party education spokesman Martin Dixon said he doubted Labor would implement the ban.