Prue Leith, head of the School Food Trust (SFT), was yesterday advocating the locking-in of school children at lunch to force them to eat healthy grub.
With a report from the Liberal Democrats last month claiming more than 400,000 fewer meals are now being served a day in schools since junk food was restricted last year, anything to arrest the potentially fatal decline is surely welcome.
Leith was talking at the launch of the Government’s new school meals campaign, Million Meals, which is attempting to get head teachers, parents and, of course, pupils, on board with the new healthy eating regime and boost uptake by the aforementioned figure.
It sounds like a sensible cost effective measure to deal with a serious failing, but a lot of caterers have already said to me the fact school meals children are surrounded with packed lunch mates laden down with cans of coke and Mars bars (unless the school has a voluntary packed-lunch policy) is self defeating.
Even if you lock them in the same situation will persist and with the majority of kids opting for packed lunches in schools (around 60% at secondary, slightly less at primary) that’s a bloody hard sell.
In fact, you could reasonably argue that secondary level teens might switch to packed lunches if they can’t escape down the road to the chip shop, increasing the rate of school meals decline.
So if the head of the SFT is happily making tough noises about locking children in, why does she and the Government remain so squeamish about taking the arguably more effective step of legislating over packed lunches?
For more on school meals see the news anaylsis in today's Caterer (18 October) and let me know you thoughts. You can also view our school meals round-up page for more.
Prue Leith in the Independent on school meals>>
Prue Leith and Million Meals in the Guardian>
Accent on whole school approach to school meals>>
Chip shops near schools love Jamie Oliver>>
