CYP Now - Policy & Practice: Policy into Practice - Healthy options must be made more desirable

There may now be more choice, but times haven't changed that much on the school dinner front. If anything, nutritional value has declined despite an increase in choice, an increase matched with a plethora of vending machines selling sugary drinks and high-fat snacks and a dramatic decline in exercise.

So it's with much fanfare that Charles Clarke has announced proposals to shake-up school meals in a final bid to tackle the escalating obesity crisis. Alongside using the curriculum to teach about healthy lifestyles, encouraging school clubs to grow and cook fruit and vegetables and developing sports, the Government is setting out to transform school food and drink.

As well as tackling issues over salt, sugar and saturated fats contained in school meals, the school review will look at offering increased choice for pupils. But choice in itself isn't enough. Children and young people can't be expected to automatically understand the true consequences of future ill-health.

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