A Growing Concern Over School Lunches
Parents across Australia are increasingly concerned about the quality of food their children receive at school. While many strive to ensure their child’s first school is a healthy environment, one parent has taken a more direct approach by highlighting the alarming state of school lunches.
Dr Dolly van Tulleken, an epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge and wife of TV doctor Xand van Tulleken, recently exposed the lunch menus at her son’s new primary school in Sussex. She requested the ingredients list for the meals and was shocked by what she found. The menu was filled with ultra-processed foods (UPFs), which are high in salt, sugar, and artificial ingredients. These foods have been linked to serious health issues such as heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and dementia.
The meals were provided by Chartwells, a catering company that supplies 1,800 schools nationwide and claims to prepare “nutritious, ethically sourced food.” However, Dr van Tulleken said that despite the appealing menu descriptions, most of the meals were ultra-processed. She told The Mail on Sunday that since chef Jamie Oliver’s campaign against Turkey Twizzlers 20 years ago, catering companies have become better at hiding unhealthy ingredients.
- These meals are full of salt and sugar and have no nutritional value. Take a look at mashed potato. You’d think it was just potatoes, but instead it has 70 per cent vegetable fat spread, vegetable oils in varying proportions, emulsifiers, acidifiers, flavourings, colourings and then added vitamins to make it all healthy again.
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She explained that these ingredients are used because they are cheaper and act as preservatives. “It’s a public health scandal when almost 100 per cent of the items on a school meal are ultra-processed,” she said.
Dr van Tulleken also has a daughter, Daphne, with her husband Xand, who presents the BBC podcast What’s Up Docs? with his twin brother Chris. The twins have been leading a campaign to highlight the prevalence of UPFs in diets. Studies show that around 60 per cent of the foods consumed by children are UPFs, and almost two-thirds of the calories in school meals come from UPFs.
“By allowing a system that results in infants having so much processed food, we are setting children up for a life of poor health,” she said.
Following her intervention, the Sussex school has terminated its contract with Chartwells. However, Dr van Tulleken believes hundreds of other schools will be affected. She has criticized the government for not including UPFs in its updated food standards for schools.
A major review will be implemented by the Department of Education from September 2027. However, this review does not specifically ban UPFs. A spokesman for the department stated, “We are launching the most ambitious overhaul of school food in a generation – banning deep-fried foods, increasing fruit and vegetables and restricting food and drink high in saturated fat, salt and sugar, which includes ultra-processed foods.”
A spokesperson for Chartwells responded, saying the company is “proud of the menus we serve” and that its chefs “boost the nutritional value of our dishes through thoughtful fortification and reformulation.”
