The UK is facing a childhood overweight and obesity epidemic, with more than a third of children living with overweight by the time they reach Year 6. Rates are highest in the most deprived communities, and the food environment children encounter at school plays a significant role in shaping their health across their lifetime.
The Local Health and Global Profits (LHGP) research consortium has responded to the Department for Education and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities' open consultation on School Food Standards: updating the legislative framework. The consultation seeks views on updating existing School Food Standards, which were put in place more than 10 years ago to ensure children in England are provided with healthy food and drink.
Prof. Mark Petticrew, Professor of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and member of LHGP, welcomes the update but urges greater ambition: "Updating the School Food Standards, which were last revised over a decade ago, is a necessary and welcome step, but for the revised Standards to deliver real change, they must go further and be better protected from commercial influence."
Robust Standards are needed to avoid harmful commercial influence
The Government is rolling out breakfast clubs across all state-funded primary schools and extending free school meals to children from households on Universal Credit. These are significant commitments. The Standards that govern what children eat across the school day, including at breakfast clubs, must be robust enough to match that ambition.
LHGP’s response welcomes proposed restrictions on high fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) foods but argues that these must be extended to cover ultra-processed foods (UPF) more broadly. British children consume the highest levels of UPF in Europe, and the harms associated with UPF have been shown to be independent of overall dietary quality. Internationally, countries including Brazil, Mexico and, closer to home, the Isle of Man are already taking action to limit UPF in school meals. The UK should follow their lead.
LHGP's response also raises serious concerns about the influence of unhealthy commodity industries on school food environments. Evidence shows that food and drink companies, including those selling HFSS and UPF products, have used school breakfast clubs, curriculum materials, sponsorship, and corporate social responsibility activities to build brand awareness among children and to shape the food culture of schools in ways that serve commercial rather than public health interests. The revised Standards must explicitly prohibit such activities.
A further concern is enforcement. There is currently no consistent system for monitoring or reporting compliance with the Standards, meaning quality is variable and inequalities in children's nutrition are likely being reinforced. The response calls for a mandatory accountability framework, as proposed by School Food Matters, with adequate funding for local authorities, caterers and schools to implement changes effectively.
LHGP also warns that the consultation and implementation process itself must be protected from industry lobbying. The history of food policy reform in the UK, including repeated delays and dilutions to HFSS advertising restrictions, demonstrates how effectively industry can weaken regulation that threatens its commercial interests. The Government must be alert to these tactics and resist them.
Protecting children’s health equitably
Finally, the response highlights a missed opportunity: the exclusion of sixth form colleges and further education colleges from the revised Standards. Young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to attend colleges rather than school sixth forms, making their exclusion a potential driver of inequality.
LHGP Director Prof. Anna Gilmore says, “Updating the School Food Standards is an important and necessary intervention. To genuinely protect children's health, and to do so equitably, the Standards must address not just what children eat, but the commercial forces that shape their food environment, their education about food, and the policies designed to protect them.”