A tiny proportion of primary schoolchildren’s packed lunches meet the nutritional standards set in school canteens, a new study has found.
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Lead researcher Dr Charlotte Evans of Leeds University coined the results “eye opening” adding that progress has been negligible since the last study of a similar nature nearly a decade ago which found just 1.1% of lunchboxes to pass nutritional expectations.
The latest research followed up a similar 2006 study, and there have been improvements in the past ten years, including the majority of lunchboxes now meeting standards for protein and vitamin C. There has been a reduction in the consumption of sweetened drinks and chocolate-based snacks, while saturated fats and sugars were found to have decreased – but levels were still higher than recommended.
Our recent analysis of hundreds of millions of packed lunches eaten by children in the past year found that pester power is at work to drive products like crisps, chocolate biscuits and sugary drinks into many lunchboxes every day.
Of all the lunchboxes examined, less than 20 per cent met the standards for energy, vitamin A, or zinc and only 26 per cent met the standard for iron.
Some 52per cent of lunchboxes contained too many candies, such as chocolate bars and Haribos, and 60per cent too many savoury items like crisps.
As a result the Government is now being urged to put packed lunches at the heart of its childhood obesity agenda – with experts calling for packed lunch policies to be introduced to cut down on the amount of unhealthy foods being brought into schools.
About half of all primary school pupils take a packed lunch to school. It also suggested parents pack smaller portions of the unhealthy snacks, such as packets of crisps that are around 15g rather than 26g and chocolate cakes and biscuits of 20g. Therefore we need more action to be taken if we want to see positive changes occur’.
The study’s lead researcher, Dr Charlotte Evans, who is a Nutritional Epidemiologist, said the Government and schools need to take action against junk food lunchboxes.
“However, we do need to do more than provide information to parents to see a greater impact, such as improving school policies, reformulating products and reducing portions of snacks given to young children”.
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“Putting a packed lunch policy in place can be tough, but every school allowing packed lunches needs one if we’re going to make life easier for parents and give kids a consistent message”. “New policies for schools, food manufacturers and retailers are needed, which will require strong support from government and stakeholders if progress is to be made”. It has distributed 631,000 lunchboxes containing a healthy lunch planner and made available tips online.
