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ONE in four parents who watched Jamie Oliver's TV campaign for better school dinners has ditched junk food, a poll revealed yesterday.
After seeing the chef battle to get schools to replace processed fast food with freshly prepared meals and fruit and veg, many adults decided to do the same. In total, 23 per cent of those surveyed had stopped buying convenience meals such as pizzas, frozen chips and pies after watching Jamie's Dinners on Channel 4.
And 20 per cent of the 1,543 adults quizzed by YouGov research said they were spending more money on nutritious food after hearing about Jamie's Feed Me Better campaign backed by the Mirror. Nineteen per cent now buy more fresh ingredients and cook meals from scratch.
Dietician Rosan Meyer said: "It looks as though Jamie Oliver may have succeeded where countless education initiatives have struggled.
"By focusing the nutrition debate on schools, Jamie has, perhaps unwittingly, done something very clever. He's found a way of educating people about healthy eating, and the dangers of eating junk, in a way which isn't patronising or hectoring and is motivating. Some of the messages are having a real impact on the population at large."
The Government pledged an extra £280million for school dinners after watching Jamie ban Turkey Twizzlers and chips but struggle to prepare fresh meals on around 37p per head in schools in Greenwich, South East London.
But some hospitals are still serving fat-loaded cheap Turkey Twizzlers, pasties, pizzas and chips to sick young patients.
The Freeman Hospital in Newcastle spends 43p per child patient compared to 90p at the neighbouring Newcastle General Hospital and the Royal Victoria Infirmary.
Sally Young, of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, said: "If Jamie Oliver has given a bit of a kick to the school meals service then we would welcome any measures to do the same for patients."
But Newcastle Hospitals Trust said: "It is misleading to identify individual meal costs. We endeavour to ensure patients' requests are met."
The Mirror
