The most heartening feature of this week's ban on junk food in school vending machines was the response. There was barely a peep of protest from tabloid papers and scarcely an accusation of an expanding "nanny state". Perhaps they have noticed how the public is catching on. Even before the School Food Trust, set up to provide independent advice on childhood nutrition, issued its latest edict, sales of junk food and sugary drinks were dropping. Indeed, the trust's new rules coincided with a profits warning from Britvic, manufacturers of Pepsi and Tango, that sales of fizzy drinks were falling except those with no added sugar. Just days earlier McDonald's announced falling sales and the closure of 25 restaurants.
Clearly the vending industry was unhappy. It is estimated to make £45m a year from school vending machines. Its spokesman thought "educated choice would have been better than outright prohibition". We need both. Now, thanks to last year's Jamie Oliver TV series on school meals - as well as the 270,000 signatures on his "feed me better" petition - a ban on foods high in fat, salt and sugar in school meals will begin in September. But, as Dame Suzi Leather, chair of the food trust noted yesterday, these rules would not succeed "if pupils are surrounded with chocolate, crisps and drinks that fill them up with sugar and fat all day". She should have added artificial sweeteners to the admirable banned list and removed bottle water from permitted purchases on environmental grounds.
The need for such sweeping changes was reiterated by a joint report from three separate auditing bodies earlier this week: without clearer leadership and concerted action the government is not going to halt the rise in obesity in children. Repeating earlier alarms they forewarned: "This generation of children could be the first for many decades that doesn't live for as long as their parents." In the population as a whole obesity has risen five fold in 25 years. Some 22% of the adult population is obese and 50% overweight. Unless current trends - the fastest growing in Europe - are reversed, half of all British children could be obese by 2020. Its links with ill health are ominous. One of the main drivers of the large rise in diabetes - now numbering over two million sufferers - obesity also causes heart disease and cancer. It could soon supersede tobacco as the greatest cause of premature death. All of which reinforce the need for this week's moves on schools.
