The government must offer all children free school meals to address the country’s “profoundly disturbing” food poverty rates, the NHS’ most senior paediatrician says.
Camilla Kingdon, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, warned the cost of living crisis was forcing struggling families to turn to unhealthy food and called on the government to act.
She said it was often cheaper for parents to feed their children junk food, as food prices continue to soar, and this was impacting children’s health, from poor growth rates to obesity.
28 comments
But it has to be decent quality, I wouldn’t feed a dog some of the food I’ve seen served in UK primary schools.
Raise the tax for the top 1%???, nope, take it from the poor, they cant afford the laweyers to argue…
Here’s a thought, why not make it that everyone gets paid a fair wage and stop letting people get shafted in every direction (rent, utility, mortgage, transport) then maybe we wouldn’t need free school meals for all. It’s a great idea and fully support it but it’s only a band aid. They’re not addressing the root issues.
EDIT: got to agree with all the replies saying schools meals should be free for all no matter the situation. Was trying to get the point across that families shouldn’t have to rely on free school meals for their child to have a decent feed due to the financial situation in the household.
Other than funding, one could have the bigger society to help out. Don’t UK supermarkets have loyalty cards? Why not someone from a school visit the cashier and points that people don’t want or forgot their cards could go into the school’s loyalty cards and they can change for fresh foods for children? Every little helps.
Reminder that Therese Coffey is absolutely stupid, spiteful, malignant evil.
We have this in wales already, I don’t see it getting talked about much but it really is helpful with costs mounting everywhere else in our household budget
I work in education, school groups come out to us from a pretty deprived area. Yesterday I had a class from the worst area possible. We are talking security guards on the local park at weekends (one of who once got bottled by a 15 year old), every child lives in a council house and the food bank is on the same street as the school. These kids have got everything going against them.
They were brilliant. Perfectly behaved and well mannered and no whinging about lunch which usually happens the second they get off the coach.
I was chatting to the teacher (also the deputy head) about how amazed I was given their catchment area. He put it down to two things. One was the staff being united behind a take no shit policy, some school staff see coming to us as a day off and expect us to deal with any behavioural issues, his staff were great and got involved with everything. The other was the fact they open their doors from 8:30 am and have a breakfast club that is open to everyone. Having a well fed class makes life so much easier for everyone involved.
I’ve never gone to bed hungry in my life. I couldn’t imagine doing it then waking up and knowing I’m not going to eat for another four to five hours. It’s sickening that some kids live this way. I would happily pay extra tax if I knew it would go to food for a child.
This is the Labour party’s policy so if we push for a general election we can make this a reality in a few months.
Under New Tory Policy children are to work rotating shifts in the school canteen in order to get a free school meal..
Suella Braverman is looking into if the children can be trained as luggage handlers/cabin crew/pilots in order to fly refugees to Rwanda..
All children? Even those with parents making six figures? Seems like there are more efficient ways to spend money.
>She said it was often cheaper for parents to feed their children junk food, as food prices continue to soar,
Rice, beans, lentils etc. continue to be cheap, healthy and tasty. Poor people in India aren’t living off turkey dinosaurs and frozen pizzas.
>Health chief calls for free school meals for all to end ‘disturbing’ food poverty
Those who can pay should. Having free school meals for all takes money away from places it is needed.
As schools are *in loco parentis*, feeding the children in their care should be just as much their responsibility as educating them.
Making sure all children are fed is a basic part of society.
I read the headline to mean the health chief was trying to disturb food poverty be calling for free school meals for all kids to end.
Only taken 40 years to put them back! Smh! Back when schools cared about kids welfare!
Let’s end financial institutions using the stock market as a betting platform, let’s end corporations avoiding tax, let’s end corporations hording money, let’s end austerity.
They haven’t seen what passes for food at my school then.
I have to say I agree. And subsidies for parents of children who have complex allergies and have to make their own.
This is a great program and should be standard, but it won’t “end food poverty”. Children are only in school about 1/2 the year – one free meal a day for 1/2 the year is not sufficient to keep children healthy.
Feed children? That’s some extremist hard left shit that is, can’t be having that. Some of them might be poor!
If you’re reading this and a Tory voter, ask your MP why they didn’t want it.
With 6 bn debit.
One extreme to the next. Why not half the price?
Plenty of teachers will buy food for kids on low incomes to ensure they all get fed, I used to buy breakfast for a few kids because it is much easier to teach kids who are not irritable due to hunger. They would get free fruit as a snack and then a free lunch. All that was a massive help to parents but it is sad that we have kids who rely on schools for regular meals, you always worried about those kids on weekends and during holidays because you never knew if they were getting regular food then. No child deserves to go hungry. It is a failure of society as a whole, not the specific child’s parents, that we let this happen and are not fighting tooth and nail to prevent it happening. Anyone who was against feeding children during lockdown should hang their head in shame over punishing children like that.
It makes financial, societal, healthy and common sense to have free school meals.
Hungry kids are less disruptive and more focus in class, raising better humans and smarter people is the best “investor in people”.
Schoo meals means a way to offer good nurturing meals. Teach good eating habits and cut down on junk, unhealthy food.
More healthy people means less things the nhs need to treat when they are older.
If school provide more than “boring” with food then some kids will associate school less like a prison and more like a place can turn too, more engagement and better outlook for education.
This is just common sense. And if I have to pay extra taxes then so be it. It’s a selfish reason really. More well fed kids means more happy people I’m surrounded by. Happy people are way less dangerous to life and property.
It don’t need to be fancy meals which can run afoul by some misguided or just plain terrible lunch ladies. Like raising in curry mrs Bolton!
Turkey sandwich, milk, a slice of cheese pizza, cold pasta, a banana.. it don’t cost that much and it will defo help.
What I’ve learned from average life is people suck at cooking in general, aren’t very creative and thus rely on whatever prepackaged asda things they can find or just do basic seasoned meat and veg which isn’t the worst but I think could be better. This leaves the kids eating whatever the parents have the energy for so if atleast school dinners are good and affordable or even free if you’re under a certain income bracket then that’s great. Unfortunately schools don’t put much emphasis on the mandatory cooking classes and instead lean too heavily on geography and the like instead.
School really needs to change and be in favor of the average child and equip them with solid skills and knowledge to tackle life and be prepared for what life throws at them. Cooking is such an essential and important skill and yet nobody cares.
I remember a kid being screamed at by a teacher for bringing in a jar of bolognaise sauce instead of the individual ingredients. This highlights another issue, his parents didn’t have the money to get them for him and assumed the school must mean a jar because who’s going to do it from scratch when you csn just use a jar right? Well this kid got screamed at. I didn’t even have any ingedients because we couldn’t afford it so I had to write out recipies at the back of the room while others cooked.
This just isn’t the way to go, this is an essential and important life skill. Both for attracting a girlfriend and keeping yourself healthy, well fed on little money instead of buying expensive jars everyday. If the tax payer money should be going to anything it should be cooking ingredients and emphesising life essential classes more than they are.
Remember school was priginally to create just barely educated drones for factories. Now it’s to create just barely educated drones for asda and starbucks. It should be so much more than that.
Honestly a country as well of as here shouldn’t have children struggling to eat
It’s not cheaper to eat junk food. Idk why we continue with this propaganda. But I don’t see why this isn’t already a thing.
I see the ‘junk food is healthier’ myth is still alive and well