General Chat

I agree with healthy eating being 'forced' on children. We live in a society that obesity is a huge problem,if this issue is not addressed our childrens life expectancy will be far less than ours, its a frightening prospect, Children need a healthy balanced diet, especially during their formative years,its so important,healthy eating does not have to be boring, even burger and chips once a week is ok, if its HOME MADE! and made from pure meat,not the rubbish you get in fast food restaurants:-))

I think that we were better fed in the 40s and 50s and not only at school. Half the problem is that this food thing is being forced down kids throats and as kids always do, they rebel ! If all this nonsense had been put to the caterers and they made meals based on what they could afford together with Mr Olivers suggestions then maybe this would not have been blown up to its current ridiculous proportions. And another reason that kids are putting on weight - they dont exercise the way that kids did. Seems that nowadays sitting in front of tele or playing games on their electronic whatnots is the extent of their exercise. Kids dont play any more. Its not only a question of what mr Oliver and other so-called experts think, they should look at the overall situation. A child in front of a puter with a game that is going to keep him occupied for hours is no way to burn off the fat and make use of the young body so that it develops properly. Sitting for hours on end will create tubby children never mind what they are eating which probably doesnt help matters either.

i sort of agree with jamie,and when i saw him make chicken nuggets,i WAS sick as a pig.oooooo cant talk about it ,its making me heave.yuk. my mum has always fed us cooked dinners salads,and always with fresh veg.so it was natural for me to do the same,even now my grandaughters eat healthily.lots a fresh fruit,apples of the tree.all that kind a stuff.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Too much pressure to be 'healthy'. Laddo has an adversion to food, its not because he is a fussy eater its textures he cant cope with. He would never cope with school dinners and would go hungry. I am lucky in that he will eat apples by the bag full and grapes, his lunch box is a roll or sandwich with marg in, carton of apple juice, apple and a treat usually homemade cake. To make dinners better quality you have to put the prices up and then people wont use the service

From the British Nutrition Foundation Many people were better fed during wartime food rationing than before the war years. Infant mortality rates declined, and the average age at which people died from natural causes increased. The wartime food shortages forced people to adopt new eating patterns. Most people ate less meat, fat, eggs and sugar than they had eaten before. But people who had a poor diet before, were able to increase their intake of protein and vitamins because they received the same ration as everybody else. And it is thought that people were better nourished during the war time years than today

I am all for healthy eating and living - but who are these people? What happens if you pack your child's lunchbox with all sorts of healthy things, but they wont eat any of it - how healthy is that? Surely there has to be a balance - and I don't mean in the diet, I mean in the approach. This is like so many other areas of life, a good and rational idea gets taken to extremes. What happened to good old common sense? If anything goes into my son's lunchbox that he doesn't like he simply trades it with one of his school pals!! (Going to climb off my soapbox now and eat my burger and chips!!)

It's not going too far. The school meals I had in the sixties were far more healthy, we have gone backwards. Young girl on my bus was complaining as she was drinking pure appple juice instead the usual chemicals. There is something wrong with that. . Bob

Healty Eating is something that has to be compulsary in schools, I feel. Too many kids brought up on processed foods. But I am a great believer in proper food,fresh home cooked food, or in this case school home cooked food. there's nothing wrong with the meat and two or even 3 vege dinner, one day, a vegetarian option another day. Good quality home cooked food is the key, it has to taste nice, none of this chicken dippers crap. Maybe they should get Rick Stein on the case, now he is the master of quality. catherine xx

I think that one of the most telling things when Jamie Oliver did his series was the lack of knowledge that many children had regarding fresh food eg not knowing what certain fruit and vegetables were. By providing nutritional and well balanced school meals I think that certainly some children will have what they are not given at home. My friend is a food technology teacher (for us oldies a cooker teacher !) In year 7 she has pupils doing a food diary of the meals that they eat at home and the results are horrifying! one child has chips and gravy EVERY night for dinner but has sausages with it on fridays - an extreme case that may be but it does happen.

I do agree we should all eat healthily, but i think its all going a bit far now. Mine never had sweets before the age of 1 year, including biscuits.....but as they get older, how do you 'make' them like nothing but healthy?

Mr Johnson is allowed his view, but needs a kick up the backside for slating Jamie Oliver, who has done wonders for the healthy eating in schools.

wouldnt mind but Boris is such a baffoon at the best of times lol At oldests school they ship in healthy food for lunch time but the majority of kids still take pack lunch. I try to be healthy with his lunch but half the time the food comes back with all the healthy bits left and they end up in the bin. I cant afford to waste food so am i best in giving him what i know he will eat - or should i carry on with the healthy stuff and keep throwing it in the bin everynight. I think Jamie had the best intentions but with the younger ones getting them to eat anything is sometimes a real struggle.

Boris Johnson has taken a swipe at Jamie Oliver's school dinners campaign saying the pressure on children to eat healthy food is 'too much'. Tory leader David Cameron this week heaped praise on Mr Oliver's crusade to make school dinners more nutritious. But Mr Johnson criticised the campaign and stood up for mothers who helped their children avoid healthier options. 'I say let people eat what they like. Why shouldn't they push pies through the railings?,' said Mr Johnson. The father-of-four, who is an official Conservative spokesman on education, added: 'I would ban sweets from school - but this pressure to bring in healthy food is too much.' He later he said he stood by the comments, made at a fringe meeting at the Conservatives' annual conference in Bournemouth. But said he did not want to personally criticise Mr Oliver who was a 'national saint'.

Read this earlier on BBC News website. Do you agree with Boris or Jamie????