By Gill Farrington BBC Radio Five Live

Jamie Oliver publicised healthier eating in schools

More than half of 50 catering contract managers who responded to an anonymous BBC questionnaire said primary school take-up in their area was down.

A fifth of these respondents said publicity from Jamie Oliver's series on school dinners was partly to blame.

The Local Authority Catering Association said it estimated school meal take-up had dropped 9%.

The largest reported decrease in the BBC survey is in an area where a private contractor provides 25,000 meals a day. The manager there said their figures for primary schools were down by 12%.

The questionnaire was sent to 153 catering businesses run by local authorities and private firms who have contracts to provide school meals.

They cook meals for thousands of primary school children a day. One manager of a council-run service which provides 10,000 primary school meals a day said take-up dropped 7% after Jamie's School Dinners was aired.

Another council-run service manager providing 14,500 primary school meals a day said their efforts to improve menus had also been hampered by the programme.

Packed lunches

They stated: "We have been steadily increasing the amount of freshly cooked food and improving our menus for the last four years, quietly and without a fuss.

"Meal numbers were going steadily up. Then along came Jamie Oliver and despite all the evidence we have to support our excellent and award winning service, parents [and children who, some as young as eight, watched the series] chose to believe the Jamie Oliver version and are now sending children in with packed lunches, mostly high in fat, sugar and salt."

Other comments suggested some caterers feel a minority of parents are partly responsible for the downturn because they are not supporting efforts to improve meals.

One said: "There has also been a backlash from some parents, whose children struggle to accept healthy menus because they don't eat this kind of food at home.

"We are required to operate commercially and must sell our service to parents, who are not prepared to pay for something which the child [rightly or wrongly] won't eat."

The problem of convincing some parents to accept healthier school menus has been illustrated in Hull.

In spring 2004 the city's council made radical changes to all primary school menus.

Immediate impact

Processed food like burgers and chips were replaced overnight with healthy meals including fresh fruit and vegetables.

There was an immediate impact on the number of children having school dinners.

Before the changes, Paisley Primary School in East Hull was serving approximately 180 meals a day. Within weeks this had dropped to an average of 110.

Head teacher Robin Petch says: "There were some parents who were concerned that the children weren't eating enough and were coming home hungry because they didn't like the new food.

"We've constantly publicised the new menus and promoted messages of healthy eating throughout the school. It's been hard work but we are gradually getting children and parents on board."

Approximately 160 meals a day are now served at the school.

Have your children stopped having school dinners? How can the quality of meals provided by schools be improved?

Your comments:

Parents who avoid a healthy option for their children not only affect them nutritionally and academically - their pack lunches undermine the task of helping other children to eat well. Try getting any 5-year-old to go for an apple when their friend is munching on a chocolate biscuit next to them!
Dominic, Kingston, Surrey

My kids eat school meals - and I used to be really concerned by the menus on offer. I would find that my child had had baked beans and chips every day some weeks. 'Token' healthy options were often gone before my kids had a chance to try them, and I considered sending packed lunches instead. Since the Jamie Oliver publicity the choices have really improved, and my children seem to be enjoying the food more. My daughter's eczema has also almost disappeared. Coincidence - perhaps?
Teresa, Yateley, England

Our school dinners went up to almost �2 a meal in order that they could replace some of the worst offenders in the choices with slightly better versions. For less than half that amount I can send my daughter to school with a packed lunch of sandwiches using homemade, granary bread, salad, fresh and dried fruit and a yoghurt - in fact exactly what I take to work with me! She enjoys helping to choose what she will eat and enjoys her lunches, so we won't be going back to expensive, over-processed school dinners any time soon.
Rachel, Maidenhead, UK

Parents are to blame for children not eating the right foods. If schools are producing healthy lunches, they need to match with a good evening meal. I watch Jamie Oliver's programme and it should motivate parents to produce better meals for their children.
Gareth Fradley, Leeds

As I teacher I can tell by the afternoon lessons who has had a healthy lunch or not by their behaviour. We have healthy lunches at our school and it means that not only do the pupils behave better, but the staff also get a decent meal in the daytime. Don't forget we have to eat school dinners too!
Rowan Jones, Oxford, UK

School meal providers have had an easy ride for too long, serving our kids poison. Now they are upset because we have found them out. They have no idea how to sell the healthy food they are now tasked to provide, because they don't believe in it. Jamie has done a great job of exposing this gravy train (sorry). How sad that it took him to do it.
Michael Brathwaite, North west London

It is important for children to eat a healthy diet. If parents can't see that then they really need educating. Jamie Oliver did a brilliant job and if parents worked with instead of against the school I'm sure things would be much easier. If parents fed their children the right food at home from the beginning the children would not dislike it and would be used to it. I think schools are trying really hard and we as parents need to support them.
Chantal Craik, Nottingham

At least they have a choice; in West Sussex, no primary school has a kitchen, so they all have to take a packed lunch. I do applaud what Jamie Oliver did - at least raising the issue made people think about what the children were eating and that is important.
Mary Baldwin, Worthing, West Sussex

My eldest daughter has just started at primary school and is really enjoying her school dinners. She can't always remember what she had but we can tell she has enjoyed them by the amount that she has got on her face. She doesn't eat that food at home but kids adapt to new things very easily and at least with these dinners I know that she has had something healthy and nutritious inside her.
Claire Barker, Bradford, UK

We live in Hull and my 11-year-old son tried the free school meals for some time. He said that they were terrible. After school he was starving. Normally he eats a good range of pastas and fruit etc but could not stomach the school meals. They may be called a "healthy option" but if they are inedible then there seems little point.
Owen, Hull

Sounds as if the main people who need educating are the parents.
Dave Smith, Poole, UK

I always chose to take sandwiches when I was at secondary school between 1958 and 1965. However, my mother was always at home and had a home-cooked meals ready when I arrived. Few, if any, of my classmates' mothers went out to work. Nowadays schools have to feed as well as educate children because of vastly different family circumstances.
Geoff Kerr, Todmorden, UK

It wasn't so long ago Jamie Oliver was a hero for getting these kids off chips. Now he's to blame for market forces. If the catering companies are not providing what the children want then clearly someone else will.
Stephen Buck, UK

The standard of most school and college meals is a national outrage. They are simply bags and tins of cheap foreign processed food tipped into trays, fryers and pans and left to reheat. They are then left to degrade for an hour. This type of food should have a levy/duty placed on it to make it financially unviable to serve.
Richard Cartledge, Nottingham

Not all of the drop in numbers can be blamed on healthy meals. In some cases Jamie Oliver has raised expectations which not all schools meet. My daughter's school still serves up the same old processed food bought in and reheated in the school kitchen. The only choice is take it or leave it. Despite direct approaches to both the school and local authority, there is a refusal to change with the times. She now has a packed lunch which we know is healthy for her and that she will eat.
Michael Giblin, Lytham, Lancashire

I still stand by Jamie Oliver every step of the way. If parents are choosing to give their children a packed lunch then that's their decision to make. If they want to give their children processed rubbish, let them, at least then they are to blame for their children's behavioural problems, and not the government. Don't let these naive, narrow minded majority spoil healthy school dinners for the rest of the nation's children.
Louise Tilney, Co Durham

I'm disappointed that, as in the TV series, some parents are undermining the efforts of Oliver et al by allowing their children alternatives to the healthy food on offer. Surely, if they really cared about their kids they would want them to eat healthily?
Gary Slegg, Wrexham, Wales

In reference to "Before the changes, Paisley Primary School in East Hull was serving approximately 180 meals a day. Within weeks this had dropped to an average of 110." Does that mean that instead of 180 children eating rubbish, that 110 children are now eating well? Got to be an improvement. Just need to work on the 70 or so others now.
Antony, Leeds, UK

My six-year-old daughter has changed from having school dinners to having packed lunch, this was due to the school offering a healthier option, but what we found was that she refused to eat things like quiche and other alternatives, so she was going hungry. Our only option was to provide a packed lunch so that she was at least eating something.
Mr D Eccles, Bury, Lancs, England

Which is more important, a few less kids eating a school dinner or the improvement in every child's education? The most powerful moment of the entire School Dinner series came in the last episode. The teachers talking about how changing the school dinners had improved behaviour, attitude, and ability to learn because of that change. Better food means better education for everyone and a healthier life. Isn't that something worth keeping?
Mathew O'Marah, Wolverhampton, UK

Moral of the story: don't let celebrities get involved as they only mess up the hard work of ordinary people.
Cameron, UK

My children go to Rushey Green Primary school in Catford and they have their own menu and cook good food which is healthy. Their school dinners are more like what we used to have. It doesn't have to be all greens and carrots to be healthy. My children love it.
Jacqueline Alleyne, London

Deserts could definitely be improved. My son is always tempted by the sugary desert. He would like a piece of fruit too, but he is not allowed both. Therefore the temptation is to eat the sugary one instead and he misses out on the fruit. I do not think schools should serve cake without good ingredients like fruit and wholemeal flour for example. The whole emphasis should be on a fruit and vegetable diet with fish, as this has been proved to be the healthiest.
Caroline Helvadjian, London

Jamie's efforts have been inspiring. My family and I have lived around the world, recently in Italy for the last two years. The standard of school meals even for primary school is excellent and cheap, disgracing the standard of mass produced meals in UK schools. No processed food, all made fresh and on the premises. Food education is critical to the long term well being of our children, and there is no excuse for anything less than healthy food.
Nick Martinelli, Arrezo, Italy