Teachers told to spy on pupils' packed lunches
Wednesday 15 December 1999

By Liz Lightfoot,
Education Correspondent

TEACHERS are being urged by MPs to spy
on their pupils' packed lunches to check
the nutritional content.

Too many parents send crisps and confectionary
instead of fruit, says the Commons education
and employment select committee. The MPs fear
the popularity of packed lunches will undermine
efforts to re-introduce minimum nutritional
standards for school dinners by 2002. They
recommend that head teachers work with governors
and parents to agree ways to monitor lunch boxes.

The MPs are also concerned by the segregation of
children eating hot meals and those taking packed
lunches. Children frequently said they gave up
dinners so they could sit with friends taking lunch
boxes. Schools should make it a priority to provide
enough space for them to sit together. "We would
prefer peer pressure to work in the direction of
encouraging pupils to opt in rather than opt out
of school meals."

The MPs condemned schools which offered cold or
sandwich lunches, saying one in four pupils did
not eat hot food at home in the evening. Though
the committee supports the introduction of minimum
nutritional standards, it questions the method being
used by the Government to assess them.

The new guidelines say that children should be
offered at least one item from five food groups -
starchy foods, vegetables and salads, fruit and
fruit juice, dairy and meat, fish or other
proteins.

This will not, by itself, reduce the excessive
amounts of sugar and fat that children eat, says
the report. Instead, it suggests, the guidelines
should be based on the actual nutritional content
of the food.

The committee had received evidence from Wolsey
junior school in Croydon, south London. It sold
fruit instead of crisps at break time and said
this produced a "beneficial, calming effect" and
contributed to improved test results.