TEENAGERS TO LEARN HOW TO COOK

From Times Online, January 22, 2008

Cooking lessons to be compulsory for teens

(David Bebber/The Times)

BREDA'S COMMENTS IN GREEN

This is an excellent idea. Unfortunately some of their parents may need cooking lessons, too.

Cooking is compulsory in primary schools, but that will now be extended to secondaries

Read food expert Fiona Beckett's suggestions of eight dishes which should be taught

Teenagers will be given compulsory cooking lessons at school, under government plans to ensure that all pupils know how to make eight different healthy meals.

From this September, every 11 to 14-year-old in the 85 per cent of schools offering food technology classes will be taught practical cookery.

The emphasis will be on making sure that pupils can master simple, healthy recipes using fresh ingredients, the Department for Children, Schools and Families said. The remaining 15 per cent of secondaries – mainly all-boy schools that did not previously teach cooking – will be expected to have installed the kitchen equipment needed to teach the compulsory classes by 2011.
Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said that he wanted members of the public to come up with ideas for the classic English dishes and international cuisine that children should learn to cook.

He is asking anyone with suggestions to e-mail the Government. They must be healthy, easy to prepare and the kind of meals that teenagers will want to eat.

The announcement comes as part of the Government’s obesity strategy, which Mr Balls will help to launch tomorrow with Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary.

Mr Balls told the Daily Mirror: “Teaching kids to cook healthy meals is an important way school scan help produce healthy adults. My mum was passionate about all this and bought me my first Delia Smith book.”

The 15 per cent of schools that do not offer food technology classes tend to be all-boys’ schools and former boys-only schools. Ministers say that this is an unacceptable throw-back to the days of gender stereotyping.

The new secondary curriculum emphasises practical cooking skills, and will also include diet and nutrition, hygiene and safety and wise food shopping.

From 2011 this will be introduced for all children in state secondary schools. Pupils will learn to cook a variety of dishes, including a “top 8”, officials said. Cookery is compulsory in primary schools.

The Government began an overhaul of school dinners three years ago after Jamie Oliver, the TV chef, campaigned against the poor quality of ingredients being served in canteens.

The e-mail address for the consultation is: getcooking.consultation@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk

However, according to Jack Grimston’s article in the The Sunday Times, January 27, 2008

Healthy lunches turn pupils into banana louts

He writes

BEWARE the banana louts. Healthy school lunches, rich in fruit and vegetables, may make children rowdy in the afternoons if they are not carefully supervised, government school food advisers have found.

The study by the School Food Trust, chaired by Prue Leith, the restaurateur, found children who had eaten a healthy lunch were more than three times as likely as those who ate less healthily to become boisterous. (I would not call a lunch packed with sweet fruits like bananas exactly healthy).

It challenges many assumptions about the differences in the way that healthy and junk food affect children’s attentiveness. The increased boisterousness was seen only when the children were left to study among themselves in small groups in after-lunch classes. If the teacher was directly controlling the class, by contrast, the healthily fed children were far more alert and attentive than the other group.

Judy More, a child nutritionist based in Chiswick, west London, said: “A good meal will make their blood sugar levels steady, meaning they concentrate better when working with a teacher. But with group work they are being stimulated by each other and are simply acting as children do.”

The healthy alertness of well fed children differs from hyper-activity that can be brought on by chemicals contained in fizzy drinks, sweets and cakes. While mental alertness can be channelled into concentration, hyperactive children are often incapable of finishing tasks.

The School Food Trust findings add a new dimension to research showing that healthy school lunches, rather than large amounts of chips and soft drinks, make children’s minds work better as well as improving their long-term health.

Despite the benefits of eating fruit and vegetables, the new study suggests the effect on behaviour is more complex than simply calming children down.

The researchers studied 146 children at six primary schools in Sheffield, observing them over 12 weeks in the lesson after lunch to measure levels of concentration or disruptive behaviour.

The study found that children who had eaten the improved menu “were 5.4 times as likely to be on-task in the teacher-pupil setting compared with the control schools. They were also 3.6 times as likely to be off-task in the pupil-pupil setting”. The researchers say that despite this apparently contrary result, the overall findings demonstrate the benefits of healthier school meals.

The research was consistent with the anecdotal evidence from teachers that pupils are more on-task following a healthier lunch: “Generally increased arousal in pupils who have eaten a healthier lunch may help to explain the increased off-task behaviours when pupils were being asked to work together.”

Leith, a food writer as well as one of Britain’s best-known cooks, is a prominent campaigner for improved school food, along with Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef.

Last month Leith warned that some of the government’s most expensive new schools were being built without proper kitchens, making it impossible to provide pupils with a healthy lunch. Too much prominence, she said, was being given to deep-fat friers.

More said that whatever effect food may have on children’s paying attention in class, this was not the main reason to encourage them to eat healthily: “It will be fantastic for their long-term wellbeing and, compared with that, the effect on their behaviour does not really matter a fig.”

The government is trying to encourage children to eat more healthily to help to slow the increase in obesity.

It has introduced tighter nutritional guidelines for school meals. Cooking lessons will become compulsory and schools will be expected to introduce guidance on the nutritional content of packed lunches.

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