Yesterday saw the launch of an ambitious project to create a food manifesto for the under-fives, to tackle the problems of poor diet among young children.

The plan - to galvanise cross-party political support and enlist practical support from food industry stakeholders - is the idea of Ella’s Kitchen Paul Lindley, who wants to open up the debate on food policy and children’s nutrition in the UK.

It is, he says, a multi-faceted problem that requires a multi-faceted, long-term solution. He is also adamant that it is our collective responsibility - from retailers, manufacturers, healthy experts, the media and government - to ensure the next generation doesn’t suffer because of poor decisions that are made now.

Although obesity has captured the majority of the headlines in recent months, it was the statistics on malnutrition that were the most shocking, he said. According to Defra, the number of children who included no fruit and vegetables in their diets had increased 33% between 2009 and 2010, while YouGov research on behalf of Ella’s Kitchen in December 2012 found that 26% of parents said the price of buying fresh ingredients was the main barrier to children healthily eating in the home.

Carmel McConnell, the founder of children’s charity Magic Breakfast, highlighted a Dickensian problem that simply should not happen in 2013 - the increasing numbers of small children in this country who do not have access to breakfast in the morning because of poverty and who have to turn up to school hungry.

Over the last 18 months, Lindley has enlisted the advice of key contributors involved in the food industry as well as health professionals, charities and food journalists to generate an overarching plan to tackle these multiple problems.

The seven-fold plan is certainly ambitious, not least in its primary aim of persuading all parties to agree to a 25-year cross-party manifesto to improve nutrition for infants in the UK. Other aims include an extension of the Healthy Start programme to improve support for new mothers and the provision of a free breakfast for every primary school child. As well as making cooking compulsory in all schools to ensure that essential skills can be passed on (which let’s face, it, is an obvious one), the project wants cooking and nutrition to be used as a central ‘prop’ across the broader curriculum to raise its profile.

However, the plan is not solely targeted at government - retailers and brands can get on board and it also calls on grocery brands to donate 1% of their annual TV spend to public service ads promoting healthy eating. Major retailers can provide practical help by offering cooking workshops at in-store cafes to close the link between food purchase and home-cooking. Similarly, the plan wants professional kitchens to throw open their doors twice a year.

There seemed genuine enthusiasm for it by everyone I spoke to at the launch, although one suspects that there might have been an element of preaching to the converted (bearing in mind that the launch was held in the conference room of Coutts private bank at the Gherkin).

Although I didn’t note any representatives from the retailers, there was representation of many other sectors - from childcare experts, nutritionalists, food manufacturers, charities, and even a representative from the Department of Health (which was heartening, given the primary aims).

The challenge now is harnessing the goodwill and publicity into firm action.

Topics