Feb04Very few packed lunches in primary schools meet nutritional standards

1. Just 1% of packed lunches for primary schoolchildren come up to the nutritional standards set for school meals in England, a new report has found.
2. A team of researchers from Leeds University examined 1,300 schoolchildren’s lunchboxes and found that healthy foods like fruit and vegetables lost out to crisps and sugary snacks.
3. The study, the results of which were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, involved children aged eight and nine who took a packed lunch to school on at least one day of the week.
4. Over a quarter of the children had packed lunches containing food and drink banned under rules on healthy prepared meals for local authority schools in England, which came into force in 2006.