Warm up activities
- A Questionnaire about healthy living habits
- What Kind of food should school canteens be allowed to sell?
- British Food Video
Vocabulary activities
Listening Activity
Reading activities
Nowadays, junk food dominates school menus. Children are not getting the right nutrients to help them grow, concentrate at school and stay healthy in adult life. Scientists stress that if children do not have a balanced diet they have behavioural and health problems.In February 2005, Jamie Oliver, concerned with the poor nutritional value of the food served up in schools, decided not to put up with it any longer. He launched the ‘Feed Me Better’ campaign, which would try to improve school food in Britain. He presented a 4-part series on TV called “School Dinners”.
Jamie worked with the dinner ladies at Kidsgrove
School, Greenwich, to provide better meals at a cost of 37p per child. It was very hard work. The dinner ladies and Jamie did not agree. The kids cried and parents slipped burgers to them through the school gates. By the end of the show though, Jamie proved that schools can offer fresh, nutritious meals like pasta, vegetables and soups that kids enjoy eating. However, what was really needed was more money from the government. So, Jamie wrote his ‘Feed Me Better’ manifesto with the top five things which the government needed to change, and put it on the Internet.
Jamie's 5-step manifesto
Suddenly, up and down the country, parents and children were sharing Jamie’s disgust at the state of school dinners. The headlines in the papers were deafening. Jamie was on the front pages of all the papers: The Guardian, the London Evening Standard, The Daily Mail.
Four days after the broadcast of the last episode, Jamie delivered his petition of 271,677 signatures to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street, who thanked Jamie for his remarkable work and announced that the government would take immediate action over school meals.
School kitchens would be rebuilt, dinner ladies trained, parents would become involved. All this would be supported by a í280 million funding package. The average cost per meal was almost doubled.
Jamie ended by saying: “If we follow a healthy diet and
take regular exercise, our kids will be healthy adults. What came out today will make a difference to every kid in this country”.
Adapted from: www.feedmebetter.com
:
