From: Philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk Sat Dec 18 07:57:26 1999
Subject: In very bad taste
Note: The temptation with stories like this is to laugh. That would be a mistake. The type of gross-interference by the state in the minutiae of life is all of a piece with the persistent trend in the past thirty years to remove parental responsibility. It is pernicious. Robert Henderson
Teachers told to spy on pupils' packed lunches
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 confectionery instead of fruit, says the Commons education and employ-select committee.
The MPs fear the popularity of packed lunches will undermine efforts to reintroduce 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.
--
Robert Henderson
philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk
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