Teachers to consider banning packed lunches to promote healthy eating

Teachers are to consider banning packed lunches and preventing pupils from leaving school premises during breaks to buy junk food as part of plans promote healthy eating.

Leon owners Henry Dimbelby and John Vincent have delivered their School Food Plan to the Department of Education, which contains suggestions for increasing school lunch uptake beyond its current 43%.

The report found that parents spend almost £1bn on packed lunches, but that only 1% of them were nutritionally balanced. It said that improved nutrition would lead to better academic results.

Among the proposals Dimbelby and Vincent suggest are a ban on unhealthy packed lunches, providing subsidised meals, cashless payments to reduce queues, and the inclusion of cooking to the curriculum until children are 14.

Dimbleby told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that improvements had been made since Jamie Oliver exposed the turkey twizzler, but that take up of school meals was still too low.

He said: "Packed lunches, and more than half of our children bring packed lunches into schools, two-thirds of those have crisps in them and two-thirds have confectionery in them.

"The best schools, the schools with good food, find ways of making packed lunches the least exciting option."

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