Teaching 5-year-olds to cook could cut obesity, says national chef

Scotland’s first national chef has called for children to be taught how to cook at school from the age of five to curb the country’s obesity crisis.

Gary Maclean, who was the winner of Masterchef: The Professionals in 2016, said food education must start in the early years to stop youngsters becoming hooked on fast foods. The chef said Scotland had the worst diet in Europe and blamed the lack of time taken by parents to teach their children how to cook at home.

Maclean, who recently cooked for Prime Minister Teresa May at a Burns Supper in Downing Street, was appointed to his new role by the Scottish government in December.

It will see him help take forward plans to make Scotland a “good food nation” and deliver a government commitment to promote locally sourced and produced food and drink.

Official figures show that two-thirds of of Scots adults and more than a quarter of children are obese or overweight.

Maclean insisted the answer was to teach children about the benefits of fresh produce from a young age.

He said: “There is definitely a passion for food in Scotland. We have the most amazing produce but we still have the worst diet in Europe, so there’s something gone wrong in the middle. Our kids aren’t seeing our food first hand. We’ve lost the relationship with home cooking.”