Islington Forum: Forget piecemeal solution, we need free school dinners for all

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Proposals to scrap Islington’s universal free school meals programme will set back the fight against obesity that all of us must tackle together, writes Professor Jack Winkler

WE are waddling to catastrophe, with our children in tow. And school meals – now a political football in Islington – are the best way of preventing it.
Last week’s results from the National Child Measurement Programme show a third of children in year 6 at primary school are overweight. Almost 20 per cent of them are obese. By age 11!
How do you stop this epidemic? There are endless exhortations to eat “five-a-day” and shock-horror TV shows about the grotesquely big. We even censor ads to kids. But we keep getting fatter.
There are numerous local schemes to engage kids and their parents in exercise classes and weight clinics. But they only have space for a small percentage of the children who need them.
The most direct solution, the only one that influences what children actually eat, is the school meals programme. That is why improving the food available in schools is the heart of the government’s fight against childhood obesity.
Islington’s politicians have leapt into this battleground, slinging mud. Labour took advantage of Lib Dem disarray earlier this year to force through a free school meals programme. All primary schools will go free in March.
The Lib Dems have now promised they will cancel the scheme if they win the local elections next year.

At £3million a year, it costs too much. Worse, it subsidises the affluent of the borough, when free meals should be targeted on the poor.
This is petty party politics at the expense of our children. Let’s get the basics clear – we are all in this together.
Some 60 per cent of adults in Britain are already overweight. From the latest measures, the next generation will be even fatter. Obesity is not a problem for the rich or the poor, men or women, black or white. It is a problem for the nation.
Which is why the Lib Dem plan is so mean-spirited – and so unexpected. A few years ago, progressive politicians used to be against “means-testing” for welfare benefits. It was a humiliating intrusion into ordinary people’s lives.
Now they are in favour of means-testing. Only they call it “targeting” instead.
We need to change children’s food culture, the idea that a combination of chips, crisps, chocolate and coke is cool. For that, we need universal solutions involving everyone – like free school meals for all primary schoolchildren.
If we “target” our help now, we will all pay in the end. Obesity is a major cause of diabetes. Which is why a diabetes epidemic is now swelling too.
Treating millions of people for diabetes is financially impossible. It would destroy the NHS. Everyone would suffer from that.
Politicians never like arguments for spending now to save later, especially when the outlays come from their budget, and the savings go to others.
But for the good of our children, that is what Islington politicians need to do. All parties at the next election should commit themselves to continuing the free school meals programme.
• Jack Winkler is a professor of nutrition policy at London Metropolitan University