Kids think fish fingers come from chickens

BOMBSHELL news, delivered by an organisation called the British Nutrition Foundation, that a third of primary kids are clueless about healthy food has spurred our parish school into action.

The head teacher devoured the BNF’s shock survey, which revealed an alarming number of youngsters believe fish fingers come from chickens or pigs, and decided drastic changes are needed.

As a member of the board of governors, I felt an illustrated poster stating “this is a pig, this is a fish” would suffice. But I was out-voted.

News that some deluded under-11s thought cheese was made from plants and pasta came from cows should be tackled in the same way, I argued.

“This is a cow, this is a string of spaghetti. This is a plant (note the leaves), this is a Babybel cheese.”

Instead, the head has introduced a draconian healthy eating regime to combat the blight of obesity in his school.

“Have you seen Thomas in Year 6?” he asked me during a heated meeting. “He must be 14 stone...”

“He is 19 years old,” I pointed out, “and shaving.”

But the head teacher has a point. Nationally, the statistics are shocking.

According to a survey, a quarter of 10 and 11-year-olds are clinically obese. A staggering (sorry, wobbling) 40 per cent are simply obese. Fifteen per cent ate the survey. For the life of me, I don’t know the difference between the clinically obese and merely obese: perhaps the former wash more regularly.

Then there’s the morbidly obese: they’re the ones crying at the takeaway counter.

The new school menu, crammed with couscous and lentils, has not gone down well with parents who have protested about their offspring being force-fed “rabbit food”.

The head teacher’s school meals policy has simply spawned a game of cat and mouse between teachers and parents. Mums and dads lob kebabs and burgers over the school gates at their desperate kin, crazed by a dearth of e-numbers, additives and old-fashioned grease in their diet.

Patrolling teachers fling them back before the hungry kids can pounce. The odd chip or battered banger gets through, but not enough, I fear, to keep their sons and daughters going until they can hit a shop and gorge themselves on Twix bars, dead dogflavoured crisps, blue Smarties, banana milkshakes and warm Tizer.

Only then will they have gained the mental and physical strength to text friends and post Instagram pictures of their cats doing strange things.

“It is a matter of some regret that our drive to make your children healthier, happier and more productive has met with resistance from the very parents.

“We are trying to help,” wrote the head in a snotty open letter, published in this week’s edition of church magazine, The Sandal.

“Those parents who insist on tossing junk food on to school premises should remember that, in the long term, we are enhancing the life expectancy of their offspring – something, I am sure, we all want to buy into.” Sometimes, but not always. I collared the head as he ran the gauntlet of angry parents and offered some much-needed dad advice.

“Listen,” I said, “have you any idea how dangerous an alert, healthy kid is?

“Do you want to be beaten to the television remote control?

“Do you want to spend the night sick with worry because your offspring’s out cycling instead of being safely upstairs ogling computer games where you have to decapitate crazed zombies before they rip the arms off nuns? “I’m sure you don’t.” “And if you must feed them pasta and brown rice,” I pleaded, “for heaven’s sake lace it with something that stupefies them.”

He gave me an old-fashioned look and said I’d missed the point of the whole healthy eating programme.

“Are you telling me,” he asked, a look of horror on his face, “that parents would be happy to have their sons or daughters sent home sedated?” “That depends.” “Depends on what, Mr Lockley?” “Depends which match Sky Sports is showing.”

Those, Jamie Oliver included, who insist on raining celery sticks and lentils down our kids’ throats would do well to remember that Elvis Presley survived on a diet of peanut butter, jam sandwiches and deep-fried squirrels.

He died on the toilet, admittedly, but that was after switching to bigger fried rodents.

The King’s death was a tragedy, but one also has to feel for those in the queue outside the cubicle.

“Do you have any idea,” I stressed to the head teacher, “how many e-numbers I, as a child of the 1970s, devoured?

“And it has had little effect on me... until a full moon, when I still eat the wallpaper. Force of habit, I guess.”