Are the chips down for healthy school meals?

on its pledge finally to banish chips from school dinner menus.

Britain is a nation with a long and proud history of school meals.

After

all, free meals for schoolchildren were first introduced in 1906 to stave

off the pangs of malnutrition after a quarter of adult males were rejected

for service during the Boer War.

This concern with children's health continued into the 1940s when the first

set of nutritional standards were implemented, and into the 1950s when the

charges were levied at those who could afford to pay them.

Yet the most recent set of minimum standards, which will permit state

secondary schools to serve as many portions of chips, red meat and baked

beans as they like each week when they come into effect in 2002, has led to

widespread criticism at a time when the level of obesity in children is also

on the increase.

Barry Sheerman, chairman of the House of Commons education select

committee, described the diets of many schoolchildren as a 'disgrace' and

called on the government to increase its spending on state school meals.

"If they want better food, they cannot flinch from the fact that better food

does mean more expense, and that means a greater budget for schools for that

service," he said.

Both primary and secondary schools today still shoulder much of the

responsibility for ensuring that children are well fed, as a Gallup poll

illustrated last year when an eating habits survey revealed that 25 per cent

of parents depend on schools to feed their children healthily.

With as many as 40 per cent of pupils skipping breakfast and many others

going without a proper meal at night, is the government gambling with the

state of the nation's health by failing to protect young children from the

temptations of fried and fatty foods?

The Child Poverty Action Group seems to think so, and was quick

to condemn the government for its easy surrender to catering companies, once

details of the latest nutritional guidelines emerged.

Sue Brighouse, the CPAG's campaigns officer, said: "We welcome what

the government is doing, but they have not gone the whole way in bringing in

nutrition-based standards and we are disappointed about that."

Yet the government has remained adamant that its pro-chip policy is intended

to encourage pupils to stay in the school canteen, where other healthier

foods, such as baked potatoes and salad, are just as freely available.

The

controversial decision to offer red meat to pupils three times a week, in the

wake of a BSE crisis, has been justified as an attempt to reduce the number

of cases of teenage anaemia in girls.

Jacqui Smith, the schools minister, said that parents should still be

confident that their children can eat healthily while at school.

While

schools will be expected to adhere to the minimum requirements, Ms Smith

stressed that they are free to adapt and improve on them as they see fit.

She said: "They are modern standards which will be easy for caterers to

implement and monitor, and, perhaps more importantly, easy for children to

understand in the context of healthy eating messages."

Catering requirements in primary schools will be stricter than those in

secondary schools, where a cafeteria-style approach to eating has made

pizzas and snacks common fare, yet many primary pupils will continue to have

a two-course meal at lunchtime.

But instead of the lumpy custard and stodgy

puddings faced by many of their parents, primary children in 2002 will tuck

into a fruit-based dessert at least twice a week.

The greatest challenge, however, facing both the government and the catering

industry could be the impact of modern technology.

For the Local Authority

Caterers' Association has predicted that pupils of the future will be able to

order their school dinners over their mobile phones, after checking the menu

and price on the school's website.

Pat Fellows, the LACA's catering consultant, imagines that dinner halls of

the future will look nothing like traditional dinner halls, resembling retro

American diners or trendy sushi bars instead.

"Secondary schools will embrace modern technology to unprecedented levels

and become more commercially focused through the development of own branded

restaurants or cafes," Mr Fellows said.

Famous for being faddy eaters, feeding the nation's children is never going

to be an easy task.

But Lucy Daniels, spokesperson for the British Dietetic

Associations, believes that schools are already setting standards high above

the government's own.

As well as introducing prize systems for healthy

eating, schools are sneaking healthy eating options in among tempting meal

deal offers.

She said: "Meals are a lot better than they used to be and caterers are

still making innovative steps to improve them."

jennifer@schoolsnet.com