Trimming the fat: tackling obesity despite funding cuts

The UK has the highest rate of childhood obesity in Europe. A quarter of children are overweight or obese, and research by the government’s Foresight programme suggests that some 40 percent of Britons will be obese by 2025, if current trends continue.

Until recently, school food was part of the problem – deficient in some of the nutrients essential for healthy growth, but high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat.

In 2005, pioneering chef, and intransigent healthy school food advocate, Jamie Oliver, alongside the School Food Plan, helped to galvanise a change in approach that has since revolutionised school food provisions.

Additional funding from the DfE gave schools more scope to invest in better-quality ingredients and to improve kitchen facilities, while new mandatory nutritional standards were introduced across England’s primary and secondary schools.

But, mounting financial pressures on school budgets are putting the brakes on the school food revolution.