The Department of Health this year launches eight different projects under its £2.2 million Food in Schools programme, to include 'Healthier Cookery Clubs', which teach youngsters about balanced diet and food safety, and 'Healthier Lunchboxes', a scheme to reduce the sugar and salt levels of lunches taken to school.
The projects, being piloted in 500 schools across the country, will also crack down on unhealthy foods in school tuck shops and vending machines.
Last month the International Obesity Task Force warned that more than 40 per cent of the UK's population could be obese within a generation. But new research from Datamonitor shows that childhood obesity is not only rising fast in the UK. By 2008, the UK, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands will all have almost caught up with the rate of obese children in the US (16 per cent), finds the report.
Governments are becoming concerned about the risks posed by childhood obesity for future generations. Obesity raises the risk of heart problems, cancer and diabetes.
Another school programme, the National School Fruit Scheme, means that four to six-year-olds receive a free piece of fruit each day at school. However reports suggest that attempts to encourage the British to eat 'five-a-day' fruit and vegetables have not been immediately successful.
The new scheme will face opposition from major consumer trends, such as the increasingly hectic nature of parental lifestyles.
After evaluating the eight project areas, the aim is to disseminate best practice through a 'whole school approach' which will enable schools to develop in-house strategies for improving the nutrition and diet of children. The tests will be completed by the end of July 2004.