7. The impact of delegation on meals
other believing that a healthy choice was possible and that sweet things were an
important component of diet.
A. I don’t think they are healthy because they have a lot of goodies in them.
B. But I think they are good because you can choose and if you choose you can have a proper
balanced meal. The sandwiches are healthy. There’s fruit, yoghurts. And sugary things
because you need sugary things, you need those because they keep you steady.
7.35 A parent with children at the same primary school believed that the move from cooked
lunch to sandwich service had made the task of getting her children to eat their five
pieces of fruit and vegetables each day more difficult. The hot meal she believed had
ensured that they had one or two portions of vegetables at lunch time.
My littlest one, it’s ham sandwiches, soup, muffin. It’s the same everyday. I’d rather he had
the school cooked meal. It’s hard to get five pieces of fruit and vegetables into them in one day.
Like they have a piece of fruit before they go to school. Give them four vegetables, or even three
on a night, and they go mad.
Market forces
The question is what would they like to eat and what are we prepared to give them. Because if
you gave them the choice they would have chips. So we’ve got to compromise really and balance
out what they would like to have and what we are prepared to give them, within the context of
a healthy school meals service.
7.36 Both at the school and the LEA level, there was recognition that the ideal healthy lunch
menu had to be balanced with the reality of the market. As one education policy officer
admitted, a menu that looked good to adults did not necessarily appeal to young people
and a catering client officer pointed out, ‘one difficulty is that if you make it “too healthy”,
children won’t buy it’.
7.37 One LEA had initially banned the central contractor from selling crisps but pupils
bought them elsewhere so they had been reinstated in the contract.
On the last contract before this one we wouldn’t allow the contractor to sell any crisps, but then
the children either went out and bought elsewhere or bought from vending machines which the
school had put in because that was good revenue for the schools. So, this time we have allowed
those items back in.
7.38 On the front line in the school dining room, similar compromises were made, not
always in response to commercial pressure but because dinner staff, particularly in
primary schools, did not like to see children with little on their plates. One cook
explained that her manager turned a ‘blind eye’ when she reported that she was offering
baked beans more often than was permitted on the centrally devised menu.
You have to coax them but some of them have very little on their plates and I put beans on
[the menu] and ‘I said I’m awfully sorry but I put them on because I couldn’t let a child go
through with that.’ If they don’t take the veg, it’s very hard to force them so I put beans on, I
shouldn’t do it.
7.39 One case study school head teacher believed that it was up to secondary school pupils
to make their own decisions about healthy eating. The school cafeteria, run by an
outside caterer, offered a wide range of fast food along with some salad items. There
was no fresh fruit on the menu. The head teacher felt that catering was a commercial
operation and needed to offer what was available in the real world outside school.
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