School meal changes - good idea for reducing health problems or controlling of diet?

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c624vezv52do

I think we have been here before with Jamie Oliver some time ago. Ideas like this in my opinion look great in paper and an easy win for government but implementation is a real challenge.

In a school I used to govern there were losses taken by catering companies in the school I offering healthy food with a lot of children avoiding healthy choices by taking in packed lunches or indeed not eating, overloading with carbs after school.

For a lot of deprived areas the aim maybe should be to ensure children get a t least fed without perhaps concentrating on food quality. I don't think you can necessarily change dietary culture easily or by essentially force. You don't want to inescapably antagonize parents and cause a meritocratic burden on teaching assistants if they have to for instance check packed lunches.

Good idea on paper but I am sure there are seasoned cynic a rolling their eyes a bit at this one.......

I mean, I suppose it's a step in the right direction, but as PPs have said it won't be enough unless the whole culture around school lunchtime changes.

DS had a Zoom interview with a post-16 college, so I was around to witness it. One of the questions he asked his interviewer was "Will we get a proper lunchtime?" The interviewer was nonplussed to discover they only get 35 minutes at DS's school- he was like "Well of course you get an hour here, why wouldn't you!"

I had to stop DS having school meals when he started at secondary. I could see what he was buying, and he was subsisting on doughnuts, waffles, bacon sandwiches and pizza slices. The catering company make more profit on these, so they always make sure their grab and go cabinet is fully stocked 🙄

Meanwhile, apparently the healthy meals advertised on the lunch menu are tiny portions, run out fast and you have to spend ages queuing for them.

Supermarkets in the UK (certainly in big cities) are predominantly ready meals. A very small section is devoted to 'fresh' food

By this you must mean 'Tesco Metro' type places that most people only use for top up shops or if someone is using it for all their grocery shopping, they're likely to be a 'young professional' who lives in the city, rather than someone living in the suburbs and catering for a family. Most UK supermarkets aren't like that and most people don't use those sorts of supermarkets for their grocery shopping. Plus if people who live in a city wanted to buy fresh ingredients, they could go to the market, have their groceries delivered, or go to one of the normal supermarkets that's in the city or close by because what has followed the increase in city living has the rise of 'normal' supermarkets in cities. Eg there's an Aldi bang in the middle of Manchester, that's like any other Aldi, similarly on the edge of Leeds.

In a post 16 environment, they won't have to have as many lunchtime supervisors, nor deal with significant behaviour challenges which happen at lunchtime.

Yes, I guess there is that.