Half of all parents take little or no interest in what their children eat for lunch, a new survey suggests. We dropped in at Tang Hall Primary School, in York, to talk to youngsters about their midday meal.

SCOTT Higgs and Anthony Gibson were looking forward to lunch - but then, they helped choose what they were going to eat.

The youngsters had helped pack themselves nutritious, healthy lunches...and each had managed to sneak in a bit of a treat.

Scott, eight, said his mum had packed ham sandwiches, a fruit bar and pineapple chunks.

He said: "I helped choose what went in it, but my mum made the sandwiches and I put in chocolate and crisps. I like the chocolate best."

Anthony Gibson, seven, said he had also helped his mum pack his lunch of sandwiches, crisps and chocolate.

He said: "I like my ham sandwiches and crisps, but I also like bananas and healthy things too."

Meanwhile, seven-year-old Thomas Collins said his brother had packed him sandwiches, crisps and a chocolate bar. He said he liked sweets and crisps better than fruit.

Nevertheless, the youngsters seem to be doing well on the healthy lunch front, despite a survey by market researchers Mintel which found that only two in five (42 per cent) parents packed a school meal for their children.

Researchers also found that although the principles of healthy eating were getting across to youngsters, encouraging them to eat more healthily was still a difficult task.

In the packed dining hall at Tang Hall School, the youngsters all knew that fruit and vegetables were healthier than crisps and biscuits, but left to their own devices most said they'd still eat crisps and chocolate.

Children on school dinners could choose from cheese pizza, potato wedges, baked beans and sweetcorn, followed by doughnuts, fresh fruit or yoghurt.

School cook Teresa Bunston said school meals were served to between 80 and 90 children a day.

"They don't go for the healthy foods in general. We do have a good choice and offer healthy options, but they tend to like anything out of the freezer, like fish fingers," she said.

Jenny Holmes, healthy schools co-ordinator at Tang Hall, said although the school did not have a strict policy on packed lunches, children were discouraged from bringing sweets or chocolate to munch at break.

Children are taught about healthy eating and the benefits of eating five portions of fruit or vegetables a day in the Personal Health and Social Education part of the curriculum.

Tang Hall is signed up to the Government's programme of providing free fruit for Key Stage 1 youngsters to have at break time.

Mrs Holmes said it had taken off in a big way, with the Year Two teacher handing out the fruit first thing in the day so that those youngsters sent out without breakfast had something to eat.

Mrs Holmes said: "We are trying to educate the children to eat more healthily, and that's a slow process.

"Hopefully these new initiatives will have a knock-on effect and the children will learn to make healthy choices when it comes to eating."

Updated: 09:38 Wednesday, January 26, 2005