Free school meals are not just about providing basic nutrition – though too many children are relying on them for that reason – they are also a vital step in learning about food and wellbeing
In 1908, at tables laid with fresh cloths, more than 3,000 of the poorest school children of Bradford sat down to eat a two-course lunch every weekday. In the centre of each table was a vase of flowers. These were the ideas of Ralph Crowley, a pioneering medical officer in Bradford who first helped revolutionise school food in the UK.
Often, it feels as if we have made no progress in a century. On hearing that Theresa May was planning to “save” £650m by scrapping free school lunches for infants and replacing them with cheaper breakfasts, my first thought was: what would Crowley say? But since he died in 1953, I waited instead for Jamie Oliver’s response. A tearful Jamie gave an interview to Channel 4 attacking the proposal as “short-sighted” and “awful”. He pointed out that the short-term savings of scrapping the free lunches would be eclipsed by the long-term costs to the public purse of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes caused by bad diets.
Continue reading...
0 comments :
Post a Comment