Most parents are keen to ensure their child’s first school is a healthy environment.
But the wife of TV doctor Xand van Tulleken has gone one step further and exposed the school lunches at her son’s new primary school as being ‘nothing short of a public health scandal’.
Public health adviser Dr Dolly van Tulleken an epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge whose son Rex will start at the Sussex school in September, asked for the ingredients list for its lunch menu and found it was full of ultra-processed foods.
Regularly consuming UPFs – defined as being high in salt and sugar and containing artificial ingredients – has been linked to heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer and dementia.
The dishes were being provided by catering company Chartwells, which supplies 1,800 schools nationwide and says it prepares ‘nutritious, ethically sourced food’.
But while the menus sounded ‘promising’, Dr van Tulleken said the reality was that ‘almost every single school meal’ – at least three-quarters of the menu – was ultra-processed.
Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, she said that since chef Jamie Oliver’s campaign against Turkey Twizzlers 20 years ago, catering firms had just got better at hiding unhealthy ingredients. ‘The 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. These ingredients are used because they are much cheaper and they act as preservatives.
‘It’s a public health scandal when almost 100 per cent of the items on a school meal are ultra-processed.’
Public health adviser Dr Dolly van Tulleken (pictured with her son Rex) an epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge whose son will start at the Sussex school in September found its lunch menu was full of ultra-processed foods
Dr van Tulleken also has a daughter, Daphne, with her husband Xand, who presents BBC podcast What’s Up Docs? with his twin brother Chris.
The twins have been at the forefront of a
campaign to expose the prevalence of UPFs in diets.
Studies have shown that around 60 per cent of the foods consumed by children are UPFs, and that almost two-thirds of the calories in school meals come from UPFs. Dr van Tulleken said: ‘If we are allowing a system that is resulting in infants having so much processed food, we are setting children up for a life of poor health.’
Following her intervention, the Sussex school is terminating its contract with Chartwells.
But Dr van Tulleken said hundreds of other schools will be affected, and has criticised the Government for failing to include UPFs in its updated food standards for schools.
A major review will be implemented by the Department of Education from September 2027. But it does not specifically ban UPFs.
A spokesman said: ‘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 spokesman for Chartwells said it was ‘proud of the menus we serve’ and that its chefs ‘boost the nutritional value of our dishes through thoughtful fortification and reformulation’.