Feed Me Better – The School Dinners Debate

On Monday (7 March), a crowd of over 300 people, including dinner ladies, lobbying groups, politicians, journalists, teachers and parents, packed into a crowded room at The Royal College of Physicians to participate in a live Channel 4 debate.

Jamie Oliver joined Felicity Lawrence (The Guardian), Professor Tim Lang (City University) and Claire Alison (HM Inspectorate of Education) to discuss what we can do to ensure that children have school dinners that are a healthy foundation for the rest of their lives.

The debate was lively: though the panellists agreed about the aim, they were not all convinced about how easy it would be to implement change. Some argued that it was a simple matter of the government providing more money, while others addressed the difficulty of changing children's attitudes to food – a much more complicated and long-term issue. Tim Lang summed it up: 'It's true that the solution is easy – we just have to change everything!'

Jamie Oliver said that changes are already underway in Greenwich, the south London borough where part of his Channel 4 series is based, and described the impressive improvements to children's health and behaviour that can already be seen. He went on to say that he had met with many people in the Government, adding: 'I am not anti-Government. I don't want any of the Government who are here tonight going back to Ruth Kelly to say I am not going to work with them, but it won't be easy for them to fob us off with election sh---!'

Many in the room were keen for the Government to set national standards for Ofsted to inspect and to follow the example set by Scotland, as described by panellist, Claire Alison. Others, including Jamie Oliver, wanted power put into the hands of individual schools and for schools to be encouraged to source food locally. Everyone agreed that improving the treatment of dinner ladies, raising their status and ensuring that they receive appropriate training was a key to improving the quality of school dinners.