School hot meals need evaluation, says HSE obesity lead

The hot food programme for schools “needs to be evaluated,” according to the HSE’s National Clinical Lead for Obesity.

Professor Donal O’Shea was responding to concerns raised by primary school teacher and nutritionist Shaun Conaghan.

Mr Conaghan said he was “very hopeful” when the hot food programme was first rolled out, but said “unfortunately some of the major providers are providing foods that we know increase obesity risk and we just need to do better”.

Mr Conaghan said that while a range of options is offered to children, he said in his experience these included “sausages and potato cubes”, a “creamy carbonara with white pasta with very high saturated fat and processed meat” and “on a Friday they can have a chicken fillet roll”.

“Children in my class can order cream crackers and a muffin or Golden Nuggets cereal as part of their snack, they can order two to three of them in place of fruit,” Mr Conaghan added.

“They can have these type of meals every day,” he added.

Guidance from the Department of Social Protection is that fried and other high-fat food products “should only be served a maximum of once a week” and “processed meat or chicken products should only be served a maximum of once a week”.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Upfront with Katie Hannon, Professor O’Shea said: “We should not be providing ultra-processed anything under this scheme.”

Prof O’Shea said that the State was already paying over €120m currently per annum on the scheme and before it was rolled out nationally it needed to be evaluated.

Speaking on the same programme, GP and newly elected Fianna Fáíl TD Dr Martin Daly said there was a role “locally for the schools”.

However, Dr Daly said that “perhaps the model needs to be looked at again and audited because it’s obviously not working if we’re going to take (Mr Conaghan’s) example”, adding that he was “not disputing” that account.

“I think if the State is going to subvent food to young children in schools then it must be a healthy diet and I would say the ultra-processed food issue is massive,” Dr Daly said.

“It does need to be dealt with and it shouldn’t be part of the school diet,” he added.

“All I can say to you is that as a newly elected TD I will be using my own influence within my own party to pursue this as best I can,” he said.

In a statement read out on the programme, the Department of Social Protection said it has “an oversight role and conducts inspections of some 400 schools annually, all the schools must submit a sample menu and funding will not be provided for food that doesn’t comply with these standards”.