Jamie’s school meal revolution shunned by 400,000 pupils
When you look at this Daily Mail article, alongside the blog about obese mothers and fathers being 10 and 6 times more likely, respectively, to have obese daughters and sons, this article makes you want to scream!
Ministers set aside £500m to help with this project – quite rightly – as the evidence that an obese child will become an obese adult is overwhelming. Jamie has done some quite brilliant and brave, pioneering, work to champion the cause for the health of our children and he has been let down by the parents of 400,000 children.
Jamie has not failed, these parents have failed their children and it defies logic as to why they would do this. I am real foodies are equally shocked. I have friends, who emailed me after a recent newsletter sharing news from The Children’s Food Campaign, and they said they were really encouraged that they were doing the right thing. They sometimes wondered if they were depriving their toddlers, but they were appalled to see the sugar and transfat content in infant food exposed by the equally brilliant Children’s Food Campaigners.
Parents who try to avoid giving their children processed foods are not depriving them – you are doing them one of the biggest health favours you possible can. Especially while the baby/infant/toddler’s taste buds are forming, the last thing you want to give them is a taste for sugar and artificial sweetness.
Did you know that the ingredients in “Kids and Grown-ups love it so, the happy world of Haribo” are (in order) glucose syrup, sugar, gelatine, dextrose, citric acid, flavourings, fruit & plant concentrates, colours (including carmine, which is made from crushed insects), glazing agents (including beeswax), invert sugar syrup and fruit extract. I bought a bag to photograph for my “least favourite” food page on my web site and then threw the bag away. I don’t dislike any human, let alone any child, on this planet enough to give them such rubbish. This is not ‘treating’ your child, it is about as irresponsible as an adult can be.
Interestingly, buried as the very last paragraph of the article is: “A report by the School Food Trust claims that making school lunches healthier (led) to an 18 per cent improvement in pupils’ concentration in the afternoon.” QED?