Research type 
Desk research
Qualitative
Quantitative
Region 
Regional
Year of report 
2007

Summary of findings

 

The benefits of free school meals are considerable. Within low-income families particularly, children cannot always rely on healthy, nutritious meals at home. School meals thus offer a health ‘safety net’, ensuring that at least one of a child’s daily meals is balanced and nutritionally beneficial.

Parents are perceived as the primary barrier to school meal uptake. However, as a group they allocate responsibility for food education and healthy food provision to the school itself. A need was thus identified to promote joint working between parents and head teachers in order to achieve understanding of the school meal service and to encourage mutual support of the initiative.

 

A range of existing interventions to improve school meal uptake and healthy eating were identified. These included Government funding and financial incentives for change; Government legislation, including food based and nutrient standards; the National Healthy Schools Programme; the Food in Schools Programme; the School Food Trust; the Food Standards Agency interventions; the National Governor’s Council; the 5-A-Day Programme; the Local Authority Caterers Association; as well as numerous localised intervention case studies. These were then considered in terms of a broader competition analysis, whereby the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ factors competing for parents’ and head teachers’ attention were reviewed. ‘Good’ competition included interventions to promote healthy eating, such as the Food Standards Association’s ‘Is your food full of it?’ low salt campaign, or the School Food Trust’s Grange Hill style advertising campaign to promote school meal uptake. ‘Bad’ competitors such as junk food advertising and adverse media coverage were also considered as influencers of choice that would need to be factored in to any new intervention design.

Based on the interviews conducted with North East healthy schools and catering professionals, psychographical profiles were built of parents and head teachers. These provided an overview of the key factors influencing parents, including perceived value for money of school meals; their own negative perceptions of the school meal service; their desire to appease their child’s likes and dislikes; patterns of cooking and eating in the home; and lack of awareness of the advantages of healthy eating. They also provided an overview of head teachers in the region, including methods being employed to obstruct unhealthy eating patterns within schools; interventions that have been successful in promoting school meal uptake; the role of the head in communicating healthy school objectives to parents, staff and pupils; the need for a consistent school policy on food; and the problems currently being faced by heads in achieving behaviour change.

On reviewing the services currently available within the North East, it was concluded that, whilst there is a general commitment to promoting healthy eating in the region’s schools, and whilst there are examples of excellent practice in promoting this agenda, there is a general lack of consistency across the region which needs addressing. Just as each school delivers a different service, based upon the head teacher’s interpretation of Government objectives, so different Local Authorities provide their pupils, parents and teachers with differing degrees of support and intervention.

Research objectives

 

Having previously established the target group for social marketing interventions as parents, in conjunction with head teachers. The objective of this study was to identify attitudes and behaviour patterns in relation to school food and healthy eating amongst this target group.

Background

 

In 2007, ten learning demonstration sites were set up by the National Social Marketing Centre with funding from the Department of Health. The aim of which was to help local areas apply and integrate social marketing into their programmes and strategies, whilst helping to develop a robust evidence base for social marketing. The learning demonstration sites are also a key component of the Department of Health’s ‘Ambitions for Health’ strategic framework to build capacity and skills in applying social marketing principles to health interventions.

The learning demonstration sites were based in Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and local authorities across the country and addressed a wide range of health issues.

The increasing school meal uptake pilot project was one of the demonstration sites selected for the programme, which aimed to increase the uptake school meals among primary school children in the North East of England.

Quick summary

 

The increasing school meal uptake in the North East of England pilot project was one of ten learning demonstration sites, set up by the National Social Marketing Centre with funding from DH, to build capacity and skills in applying social marketing principles to health interventions. This pilot aimed to increase the uptake of School meals among primary school children in the North East of England.

Research participants

 

Nine healthy eating professionals from five North Eastern Local Authorities.

Audience Summary

Gender

 
Male
Female

Ethnicity

 

Not stated

Age

 

Not stated

Social Class

 

Not stated

Methodology

Methodology

 

Qualitative study consisting of a web trawl of secondary data, including white papers, reports, surveys and statistics databases. In addition, semi-structured interviews with nine healthy eating professionals from five North Eastern Local Authorities.

Data collection methodology

 
Depth interviews
Ethnographic
Face-to-face

Sample size

 

Nine healthy eating professionals from five North Eastern Local Authorities.

Detailed region

 

 Five North Eastern Local Authorities

Fieldwork dates

 

2007

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