Children's poor choices threaten free school meals project

Published on Friday 3 April 2009 21:31

AN INDEPENDENT report into the Scottish Government's free school meals pilot has claimed too many children simply ignored the healthy food and ate only the parts they liked, threatening a key aim of the scheme to tackle obesity.

The Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) said the government needed to find ways to get children to eat vegetables for the scheme to be successful.

Paul O'Brien, chief executive of APSE said "significant" additional funding, and a way to get children to eat the healthy options, were needed to ensure the success of the project.

The report examined pilot schemes in five local authorities. The project is now being rolled out across the country.

The report noted that many schools struggled to find the space and resources to cope with the uptake which, overall, saw an increase from 53 per cent of pupils taking meals to 75 per cent.

Karen Whitefield, Labour's early years spokeswoman backed the call. She said: "A number of Scottish councils have made clear that unless more money comes from the SNP Government, the project will falter.

"In addition, if the introduction of free school meals increases uptake significantly, the Government will need to provide funding to enable schools to improve their dining facilities to deal with higher demand."

Liz Smith, Conservative shadow schools minister, said: "Healthy food is one way of combating Scotland's rising obesity epidemic but we must look at adopting other measures as well – a greater focus on physical and outdoor education for example.

"Too many of our youngsters still miss out on this and therefore they also miss out on learning the values which are so vital in later life and which are meaningful in a much wider educational perspective."

Last year a report revealed Scotland was the second fattest nation in the developed world, behind only America.

A spokesman for Scotland's biggest teaching union, the EIS, said offering healthy free meals was " extremely worthwhile".

However, he added: "If the policy is to be successful and have a real positive impact on young people's health, the funding will have to be put in place to allow all schools to offer appealing, fresh and healthy food of high quality."