Teach children to love healthy food, says TV cook
TV CHEF Prue Leith has called on the Government to teach children to love cooking or the obesity problem will never be solved.
The 78-year-old, who is a co-judge on Channel 4 show The
Great British Bake Off, has spent her whole career working in the food industry as a chef, restaurateur, businesswoman, writer and TV star.
She said children needed to be taught in schools how to cook and to love healthy food and follow a good diet.
“I have shouted in the ears of almost every politician I have met,” she said.
“I think the message has got across but what has not got across unfortunately is the practice, and the practice needs money.
“If you take school meals, it is very difficult to get schools and the Government to understand the secret of school meals, which is to teach children to like food, to like a good diet, to like healthy food.
“In order to do that, it is best to do that via cooking and to do that you need the equipment and the teachers.
“It is in the curriculum that every child up to the age of 14 is supposed to cook. Only 40 per cent of schools do it.
“I attack the Government because I think it is so short-sighted not to realise that if you don’t teach children to eat properly, you will never, ever crack the obesity problem.
“You will go on having to pay increasing amounts of money for the NHS. It is true people are living longer, but they are living longer unhealthily and increasingly obese.”
Leith was speaking as part of her appearance at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.