THE Very Hungry Caterpillar had the right idea. Eat a good mix of food: an apple on Monday, two pears on Tuesday, etc, followed by a few goodies and then a nice bit of something green and leafy (a leaf in his case).

Play a bit, rest a bit. Grow big and strong, then spread your wings into adulthood.

Is it any wonder this picture book is still such a firm favourite with the under-fives (and the over-25s) when it talks such good sense and promotes a life-affirming message?

Eat well and prosper, it says. A lesson from which we, as a nation obsessed with food, could all benefit.

Most of us are on some diet or other, eating nothing but cobwebs and cabbage for weeks at a time, and the rest of us are thinking about it.

When we're not torturing ourselves in a bid to squeeze into a pair of jeans that last fit us when Jimmy Osmond was still considered a bit of a looker, we are fretting about what our kids are scoffing.

Are they eating too much or too little? Are they too fat or too thin? Should they be having more fruit and less bread, or more veg and less pasta? Will they ever swap their fried eggs and Spam for 'green' eggs and ham?

The latest food frenzy comes courtesy of Jamie Oliver. His campaign to put a stop to dodgy school dinners must be applauded. But while we are all running around cursing like trawlermen in a bid to get better grub on the menu, I fear we may be ignoring another fundamental problem, this time to do with the nourishment of our children's minds.

We all threw up our hands (and our Turkey Twizzlers) in horror when we realised that some schools were struggling to feed their pupils on 37p a day (44p in York), the equivalent of around £74 a year.

But would we have been so galvanised into action if it had been JK Rowling on our TVs instead of young Mr Oliver telling us that some schools are spending less than £10 a pupil on books a year.

Booktrust, an independent organisation promoting books, reckons the minimum acceptable spend on books per child should be £36.50 in primary and £69.50 in secondary schools - figures roughly in line with the average spend in independent schools.

Perhaps, not surprisingly, the state sector comes nowhere near achieving these goals.

Research by Norwich Union and the Educational Publishers Council revealed that while parents were spending £31 annually per child on books, the Government was only parting with £18 a pupil in primary and £24 a head in secondary education.

The sad fact is that books come a sorry second to technology when it comes to budgeting. While school libraries dwindle, ICT suites flourish.

Why? Because parents prefer to see rows of shiny new computers rather than rows of boring old books. Because the Government does not earmark money specifically for books. And because Ofsted puts a higher score on computers than books.

The Government stresses the importance of literacy at every conceivable opportunity, but fails to promote books in a positive light.

Books should be more than educational tools; dry text to be endured rather than enjoyed. Books should challenge children, encouraging them to think for themselves and igniting their imagination.

Sitting in front of a computer is essentially a passive activity. Reading a book takes effort, but it's worth it.

If the only books our kids are reading in ten years' time are computer manuals, our education system will have failed abysmally. And the Very Hungry Caterpillar will be spinning in his cocoon.

Updated: 09:25 Monday, April 18, 2005