Topic: 36% of children do not eat breakfast

[TCA]

Based on the previous discussion about jamie oliver and his school dinners i thought you may all be interested in our findings about our childrens eating habits, from seminars we have been giving in secondary schools.

The last month we (the cooking academy) visited several schools where we engaged with the children to understand their current cookery skills, knowledge of food and dietary habits.

This included:

[Malc.]

That's an alarmingly higher figure than I would have hoped. The wife and I have always been careful to teach our children the full value of food. Ask my children where their roast beef comes from they won't reply Tesco's and more likely to offer which part of the Cow it actually is.

Did the results show any trends?

[TCA]

Basically the main subject of our focus was the importance of breakfast and learning to cook. There was some obvious trends as you can see above relating to those that dont have breakfast food habits and those that dont. We were not able to view exam results for these children, but we were curious as to whether performance of those that do not eat breakfast was lower than those that did.

Those that do have an active involvement in cooking at home seemed to have an all round good knowledge of the health implications and benefits of certain ingredients and food groups. We were quite worried that some of those that have never cooked we not sure whether they normally eat ready meals or home cooked food as they do not know the difference. We had a number of students who were asking what are ready/frozen meals and the stark truth is they never enter the kitchen so how would they know.


There are some real gaps in the schools curriculum for teaching children about food, cooking and a healthy diet. We understand that schools have a tight curriculum as it is but surely some of this knowledge and information is as important as the three r's. It is also sad to see that children are not being educated by their parents on the food relatied matters, it seems only beneficial to encourage children to cook as it will give the parents a night of, teach the children life skills and educate them on nutrition.

http://www.thecookingacademy.co.uk/TeachingInSchools.html