14 Sept. 07
Healthier school meals are being shunned by many pupils, with figures published showing that 20% fewer meals are being served in secondary schools.
The number of children eating school meals has fallen by 424,000 since the government's healthy eating drive began two years ago, with pupils spurning Jamie Oliver-style lunches in favour of takeaways, official figures published on the 3rd September show.
Ministers are now almost a million children away from their 2009 target for improving the take-up and quality of school catering. The School Food Trust, which advises the government on improving meals, admitted that reaching that goal would be "a huge challenge" and said it will launch a major campaign next month to tempt pupils back to the service.
The Liberal Democrats claimed that the drop in meals served in secondary schools meant that the school meal service was in "meltdown".
But celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, said such an initial decline was not a surprise as "kids don't like change" and believed demand would grow in the next few years.
David Laws, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on children, schools and families, who obtained the statistics in response to a parliamentary question, said "The new standards for healthier school meals have been introduced too quickly, too inflexibly, and with too little education of pupils and parents. Instead of boosting the number of children taking up healthy school meals, government policy has contributed to an implosion of the service."
He added: "Almost two-thirds of secondary school pupils are now shunning school food." A spokesman for the School Food Trust said: "We knew this would happen in the first year. But primary schools have stabilised and in the next couple of years as children more used to [the new meals] come through to secondary level we think numbers will begin to bump up."
Five portions
The survey from the National Foundation for Educational Research says it has helped thousands more pupils eat five portions of fruit and vegetable daily.
Under the School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme (SFVS), introduced by the government in 2004, all four to six-year-old children in state infant, primary and special schools are entitled to a free piece of fruit or vegetable each day.
An evaluation of the scheme, carried out across 37 schools in north-east England by the National Foundation of Educational Research, concluded the number of children eating their five-a-day has increased substantially.
They compared food diaries and questionnaires of more than 1,600 children taking part in the scheme in the north-east in March 2004 with nearly 2,000 different children in November 2006.
They found 32% of children eating five portions of fruit and vegetables in 2004, compared with 44% of children in the 2006 study.
The researchers observed: "It should be noted that the largest increase was in vegetable consumption, not fruit, which may indicate that changes in school meals had a greater impact."
Citrus fruit
Children eating school lunches ate "significantly" more vegetables at lunchtime (0.94 of a portion) compared to those with packed lunches (0.18 of a portion).
Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said: "Children eating more fruit and vegetables each day and reaching their five-a-day target is excellent news.
"The SFVS is important in underpinning the government's commitment to healthy eating in schools.
"It provides an opportunity for children to try out new foods particularly vegetables and for them to become accustomed to eating them as part of their daily diet."
Studies show that eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day could lead to an estimated 20% reduction in overall deaths from chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke and cancer.
From September 2007, the SFVS is to be extended to add carrots and tomatoes to apples, pears, bananasand easy-peel citrus fruit.
What do you think? Do you think that the number of schoolchildren eating the healthy school meals will increase? Should it have been implemented so quickly, or even at all?
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http://education.guardian.co.uk/schoolmeals/story/0,,2161882,00.html
