In the government’s latest bid to impose healthy eating on our nation’s kids, under new proposals, fruit will replace “sugar-laden treats” for the majority of the school week
I blame Jamie Oliver. Not for anything to do with the Strait of Hormuz or those razor-sharp Lego videos on social media, skewering Donald Trump. Nor the annual Arsenal collapse every time English football’s Premier League title race enters April and May. No. It’s down to Jamie that many schools are one step ahead of the government’s latest bid to impose healthy eating on our nation’s kids. Under new proposals, fruit will replace “sugar-laden treats” for the majority of the school week and schools will no longer be allowed to offer unhealthy “grab and go” options, like sausage rolls and pizza, every day.
The thing is, Jamie’s been hammering away at that since before Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer became Director of Public Prosecutions in 2008. Jamie launched his Feed Me Better campaign in 2005. It was shown, 10 years later, to have significantly improved our children’s test results and to have reduced the number of days they were off sick.
The culture has been in place in thousands of schools around the country for years. It was Jamie who led a march on Downing Street four years ago to protest against a Tory government decision to delay banning buy-one-get-one-free (BOGOF) offers on fattening junk food. So yes, the numbers might well currently suggest that more than one in three kids leave primary school overweight or obese.
And yes, the Department of Health does say that tooth decay from high-sugar diets is the leading cause of hospital admissions for children aged between five and nine.
But in many cases, schools aren’t responsible for that. Certainly not my kids’ school where healthy eating has been policy for many years now. It is at home where for many parents, it is often a choice between heating or eating in this cost-of-living crisis. For others, school for their youngsters is actually where the discipline is.
It is at home where the high sugar intake, fizzy drinks, pizzas and processed foods have to be. Why? Because in the real world, sadly, it is cheaper to eat badly than to meet the guidelines we’d all like to follow ideally.
So, of course people will opt for BOGOF options. Of course people will head to cheap chicken and chip shops and burger joints. Why would they not? Early Education Minister Olivia Bailey MP won’t be wrestling with the real-world eating problems haunting most UK mums and dads any time soon.
Healthy food prices increased by around 21% from 2022-2024. Trump’s Iran buffoonery will only drive them up further. Parents simply can’t afford it. Yet our supposedly socialist UK government finds itself unable to join the dots.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed last month that the number of workers on zero-hours contracts reached a record-high 1.23million. The government doesn’t want to improve the wages of resident doctors, adult social care workers and the very people they want to implement their healthy eating policies – teachers.
Yet foot soldiers like Bailey are on Breakfast TV lecturing parents doing all they can to feed their kids at all, let alone in the manner that a government is demanding.
Critics will doubtless tell me all about meal preparation, smart choices and smart planning – as if I didn’t grow up on an East London housing estate as part of a family for whom there was no other option. Because the reality is, most parents’ priorities are set by the money they have in their purses or pockets, not by politicians’ aspirations.