School dinners
With all the hype and debate surrounding school dinners and children’s diets recently, I thought I might offer my views.
The main problem that I see is not necessarily with just what is available at school, but what else can be bought instead of a main meal. With many schools still having tuck shops, cash cafeterias and worst of all vending machines it is unlikely that any child is going to choose healthily options. After all the manufacturers don’t spend millions of pounds every year on advertising the latest chocolate bar or bag of crisps for it to go unnoticed, but more on that issue in a future article.
A study carried out by the Consumers association (Which? Magazine 2003) on 246 primary and secondary school children showed some very worrying results with their diets. An example is given below:
Child aged 15 years
Breakfast - One piece of white toast with butter and a mug of tea
Break time - Bag of salt and vinegar crisps
Lunch - Plate of chips with gravy and two small sausages
Afternoon break - Orange flavour lollipop
The main problem that I see is not necessarily with just what is available at school, but what else can be bought instead of a main meal. With many schools still having tuck shops, cash cafeterias and worst of all vending machines it is unlikely that any child is going to choose healthily options. After all the manufacturers don’t spend millions of pounds every year on advertising the latest chocolate bar or bag of crisps for it to go unnoticed, but more on that issue in a future article.
A study carried out by the Consumers association (Which? Magazine 2003) on 246 primary and secondary school children showed some very worrying results with their diets. An example is given below:
Child aged 15 years
Breakfast -
At home - Bag of bacon flavour crisps, chocolate bar, bag of sweets and a ‘tooth kind’ blackcurrant drink.
Tea time - Home made shepherds pie with baked beans plus sugar free lemonade
Before bed - Small packet of wine gums, six chocolate sweets and a glass of milk
The above was just a typical example of what one of the children ate, and was in line with the vast majority of all the children in the study. This example was more or less the same on the second day, but there was at least some variation in what she ate, such macaroni cheese for breakfast, Turkey Twizzler with chips and gravy and chips gravy and chicken nuggets for tea. A younger child (aged just 11) had less variation in her diet and on most days of the week ate the following:
Sweetened breakfast cereal, packed lunch consisting of peanut butter sandwiches, crisps and a flavoured yogurt, with pizza, cola and cake for tea each night.
During the day she also ate 4 bags of crisps having them at breaks and lunch time.
When a child is growing he or she needs the very best nutrition they can in order to develop properly and the above is a concerning trend for future problems. The most worrying part of these examples is that the parent’s apparent acceptance of this ‘normal’ diet and an unwillingness to take some responsibility for their child’s health and nutrition.
This can be highlighted perfectly by a recent article reported in the telegraph on the 18th of this month where a group of mothers have started running their own ‘fast food’ delivery service. The mothers (see update below) come to the school at morning break and take orders from the children for food from the local fish and chip shop. They then come back at lunch time and pass the orders through the school fence!
The group are using a supermarket trolley to make daily runs with fish and chips, pies, burgers, sandwiches and fizzy drinks from local takeaways. The ‘protest’ is against the schools new scheme to provide the kids with healthier meals whilst at school, and some of the comments from the parents were quite literally frightening!
This kind of example is obviously not going to give their children a particularly healthy understanding of the food they eat, and one can only imagine what the future consequences of these kinds of actions will be.
So where does the blame lie? The parents, the government or maybe the schools with their budgets and the vending machines. The answer I feel is all of the above, and only by working together can they make a difference.
One simple solution to curb unwanted spending on junk and fast foods, would be to bring a kind of voucher/payment card that the children took to school instead of cash, this would only allow them to buy food from the schools, who in turn by having more children buying their products, might have more money to spend on the ingredients, further improving the produce they sell. The voucher scheme would also control the amount of rubbish that is often bought on the way to school, lunchtimes and on the way home from the surrounding shops. A fantastic example of the types of foods that children will buy if left to their own devices can be found at the nearest shop to a school and really must be seen to be believed!
In short this problem has to be sorted out and some people are campaigning hard to help where they can, such as Jamie Oliver with his school dinners campaign and the dinner lady Jeanette Orrey who has taken it upon herself to improve the school dinners in such a big way that the parents are queuing to eat them as well.
I could go on and on but the long and short of it is that we all need to get involved and make a difference. To emphasise this need for change I would like to leave you with this very sobering thought.
Obesity, and importantly the linked problems such as Diabetes and Heart disease, is at an all time high with evidence now suggesting that for the first time in history the next generation with their poor diet and lack of activity will have a lower life expectancy than their parents. Link this to the government talking of a health ‘time bomb’ and the president of the international diabetes federation, Sir George Alberti; warning that the problem is ‘one of the biggest health catastrophes the world has ever seen’, it all paints a very gloomy picture.
To sum up, I think we could all take a little more responsibility for our diets, health and activity levels. By educating ourselves in simple and practical ways we can help not only ourselves but those around us as well.
Update - One of the mothers involved in the fast food orders was approached by Jamie Oliver in his latest series - Ministry of Food. She at first was very negative about the project (click here to learn more) but after becoming involved had to admit that the pass it on campaign could work - great result!
The above was just a typical example of what one of the children ate, and was in line with the vast majority of all the children in the study. This example was more or less the same on the second day, but there was at least some variation in what she ate, such macaroni cheese for breakfast, Turkey Twizzler with chips and gravy and chips gravy and chicken nuggets for tea. A younger child (aged just 11) had less variation in her diet and on most days of the week ate the following:
Sweetened breakfast cereal, packed lunch consisting of peanut butter sandwiches, crisps and a flavoured yogurt, with pizza, cola and cake for tea each night.
During the day she also ate 4 bags of crisps having them at breaks and lunch time.
When a child is growing he or she needs the very best nutrition they can in order to develop properly and the above is a concerning trend for future problems. The most worrying part of these examples is that the parent’s apparent acceptance of this ‘normal’ diet and an unwillingness to take some responsibility for their child’s health and nutrition.
This can be highlighted perfectly by a recent article reported in the telegraph on the 18th of this month where a group of mothers have started running their own ‘fast food’ delivery service. The mothers (see update below) come to the school at morning break and take orders from the children for food from the local fish and chip shop. They then come back at lunch time and pass the orders through the school fence!
The group are using a supermarket trolley to make daily runs with fish and chips, pies, burgers, sandwiches and fizzy drinks from local takeaways. The ‘protest’ is against the schools new scheme to provide the kids with healthier meals whilst at school, and some of the comments from the parents were quite literally frightening!
This kind of example is obviously not going to give their children a particularly healthy understanding of the food they eat, and one can only imagine what the future consequences of these kinds of actions will be.
So where does the blame lie? The parents, the government or maybe the schools with their budgets and the vending machines. The answer I feel is all of the above, and only by working together can they make a difference.
One simple solution to curb unwanted spending on junk and fast foods, would be to bring a kind of voucher/payment card that the children took to school instead of cash, this would only allow them to buy food from the schools, who in turn by having more children buying their products, might have more money to spend on the ingredients, further improving the produce they sell. The voucher scheme would also control the amount of rubbish that is often bought on the way to school, lunchtimes and on the way home from the surrounding shops. A fantastic example of the types of foods that children will buy if left to their own devices can be found at the nearest shop to a school and really must be seen to be believed!
In short this problem has to be sorted out and some people are campaigning hard to help where they can, such as Jamie Oliver with his school dinners campaign and the dinner lady Jeanette Orrey who has taken it upon herself to improve the school dinners in such a big way that the parents are queuing to eat them as well.
I could go on and on but the long and short of it is that we all need to get involved and make a difference. To emphasise this need for change I would like to leave you with this very sobering thought.
Obesity, and importantly the linked problems such as Diabetes and Heart disease, is at an all time high with evidence now suggesting that for the first time in history the next generation with their poor diet and lack of activity will have a lower life expectancy than their parents. Link this to the government talking of a health ‘time bomb’ and the president of the international diabetes federation, Sir George Alberti; warning that the problem is ‘one of the biggest health catastrophes the world has ever seen’, it all paints a very gloomy picture.
To sum up, I think we could all take a little more responsibility for our diets, health and activity levels. By educating ourselves in simple and practical ways we can help not only ourselves but those around us as well.
Update -