FFK104: Why school food matters even if your child doesn't eat them
About this episode
The episode discusses the importance of school food and its impact on children's nutrition, even for those who take packed lunches.
Today’s episode is about school food and it’s a topic which is very close to Joanne's heart because she worked in school food for a number of years and knows first hand how incredibly important it is. There have been a lot of changes to school food over the years, and this episode walks through the history of school dinners and some of the negative and positive changes. The government has put out some proposals in 2026 for further changes and the episode talks through how to have your say about them. It also explains why school dinners matter even if your child takes a packed lunch and how we can all help to improve them. Every child is different and many children have difficulties with eating which make accommodations necessary but this episode looks at how school dinners matter even if your child takes a packed lunch and how we can all help to improve them for our children. Links in this episode: Research examples about the nutritional balance of school meals and packed lunches: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10271449/ https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/1/e029688 https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news-science/news/article/4522/children-s-packed-lunches-lack-nutritional-quality…
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