King's College London , Department of Nutrition and Dietetics

The Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at King's College London developed the Primary School Meals Research Project, 2004-2005. It was funded by the Department for Education and Skills and the Food Standards Agency, as a result of growing concern about childrens' diets and the quality of school meals.

In 1941, the first nutritional standards for school meals were established and later updated several times and for the last time in 1975. However, the Education Act, 1980, removed such nutritional standards and obligations from Local Education Authorities. In 2001 statutory National Nutritional Standards for school lunches were re-introduced. In order to understand the potential changes in the contribution of school lunches to daily intake and following the re-introduction of these standards, a survey of school meals, in a representative sample of English primary schools, was commissioned.

The study had three aims; to assess whether the food provided by school caterers met the 2001 National Nutritional Standards; to assess whether food provided met the guidelines set out by the Caroline Walker Trust in 1992 and to identify the food consumption and nutritional intakes of primary school children from school meals and to compare these with the Caroline Walker Trust guidelines. The food choices of 7058 children from a representative sample of 151 English primary schools were collated and data was collected at the school and pupil level. Interviewers from market research company, Taylor Nelson Sofres, were used and managed by Dr Michael Nelson, senior lecturer at King's College London. This project resulted in the publication of School Meals in Primary Schools in England, 2006.