Give school caterers a break

Everyone has been taking pot shots at school meals and the school-meal system recently - Jamie Oliver, school caterers (give us more money), health chiefs, and now the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

The latest move comes as FSA officials propose a survey to find out whether the meals served in English schools are meeting Government guidelines on nutrition.

The guidelines were introduced after an earlier FSA investigation into the diet of children found that the average four- to 18-year-old is eating too much sugar, salt and saturated fat. Surprise, surprise. The whole nation eats too much sugar, salt and saturated fat - it's not a problem restricted to children or schools.

And that's the point. According to the Local Authority Caterers Association, school meals represent only 10% of the food that the average child consumes. The other 90% is made up of fast-food fare, sweet-shop junk and supermarket convenience meals that parents, with little or no food education, buy and serve at home (if, indeed, they still serve meals at home). If there's a problem with juvenile eating habits, it rests here, and not just in the classroom

Of course, school food should be nutritionally sound, but it is wrong to focus on school meals as the main reason for obesity among children, or as the root cause for the deteriorating state of the nation's health. This has more to do with culture, average income, advertising and peer pressure.

If improving school meals has a part to play in that culture, then school caterers need the tools and the funding to do the job. But, remember - the job doesn't stop in schools. It's time to educate the nation into choosing healthy options, and for the Government and the FSA (and Jamie Oliver) to provide practical solutions in place of sweeping statements and unqualified criticism.

Forbes Mutch, Editor, Caterer & Hotelkeeper