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Veg Power Summit 2024

Primary school meals: Who decides?

Food eaten during the school day makes up nearly a fifth of primary age children’s diets in the UK. This presents a huge opportunity for schools and school caterers to support the improvements to children’s diets that are drastically needed, ensuring they have the nutrition to grow healthily and the energy to learn and thrive throughout the school day.

Several studies have highlighted the superior nutritional quality of school meals compared to packed lunches. This underscores the importance of promoting school meal uptake as a strategy for instilling healthy dietary habits from an early age and tackling childhood obesity. Yet, a puzzling trend persists: even when cost is taken out of the equation many families choose not to claim these meals, opting instead for less healthy alternatives. This report delves into the heart of this issue examining the human factors behind these decisions. Who in the family decides whether a child eats a school meal or a packed lunch? What drives their choice? And most importantly, how can those in the school food system address these barriers to increase uptake?