Quotes of the Day

The students of class CM2 at the St. Joan of Arc elementary school are playing with their food — and their teacher is delighted. The kids, 11- and 12-year-olds from the town of Laventie in northern France, finger fleshy chunks of mango with fascination and wince as they suck on lime slices. During the course of the morning, the class learns that fruits contain minerals, fiber, sugar and vitamins. "Who knows why we need vitamin C?" asks Carole de Bailleul, a nutritionist employed by the local school district. Three hands shoot up. "Without it we become tired," answers Margo Demarey, with gleeful enthusiasm.

If only more of Europe's children knew as much about healthy food. Just like their counterparts in the U.S., European kids increasingly feast on a diet high in fat and sugar and low in nutrition — and too often that includes what their schools feed them. The junk-food problem was highlighted recently by British television chef Jamie Oliver, who describes meals served in British schools as "mostly rubbish." Poor diets have fuelled a big increase in the number of obese children; levels of childhood obesity in Europe have increased from between 5% and 10% 25 years ago to as much as 25% in some countries today. It may also contribute to bad behavior and learning difficulties. A study by Oxford University's department of physiology published in this month's issue of the U.S. journal Pediatrics found that underachieving British children's reading and spelling abilities were dramatically improved when their diets were supplemented with fish oils containing omega-3 fatty acids — essential for brain development but missing from modern processed foods.

Schools and parents are finally waking up to the notion that poor diet is making kids fatter, angrier and less able to learn. The health-and-nutrition class at St. Joan of Arc, for instance, is part of a government-sponsored effort to tackle child obesity. Funded by European food and drug companies and France's Ministry of Health, the program is designed to make healthy eating part of children's everyday lives — at school and at home.

Nutritionists teach children from the age of 3 what, and how much, they should eat, and also train other teachers who can then incorporate the healthy-eating mantra into their classes. School lunches now replace unhealthy foods like French fries with vegetables such as beans. Children in the district also dig into a healthy preschool breakfast buffet intended to supplement the breakfast they ate — or sometimes did not eat — at home.

The results have been spectacular. The number of obese French kids — children are defined as obese if they are 20% or more above the recommended weight for their height and age — has doubled from 6% to 12% over the past decade. But the increase in obese students from Laventie and neighboring Fleurbaix, where the nutrition program also runs, has been an ultraslim 1%, one of the lowest rates in the country.

Families, too, benefit, as children teach their parents what a healthy, well-balanced meal looks like. "When I go with my children to shop at the supermarket my daughter will look at the label and advise me what is and isn't healthy, and why," says Patricia Vanecloo, headmistress at St. Joan of Arc and mother of two students there.

The program has been so successful that it now runs in schools in 10 other towns across the country and the doctors and nutritionists behind the program are trying to find funding and support to expand the program nationwide and to the rest of Europe. Other countries are picking up on the trend. In Germany — where up to 16% of kids are overweight, including 7% who are defined as clinically obese — healthy eating for kids is a hot topic. This month, the Ministry of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture released the first nationwide criteria for school menus, calling for more vegetarian meals, fewer fatty and sweet foods, and fresh fruit at least two to three times a week.

A couple of school districts are leading the way. Paderborn-Elsen, a secondary school in the state of North Rhine Westphalia, began a healthy-lunches policy in the early '90s, after the meals served by the school's caterer grew progressively worse. "The tomato soup would end up containing only three rice grains and with only a faint notion of a real tomato," says Sigrid Beer, a mother of three kids at the school and a nutrition researcher. "We decided that we needed something more healthy." The parents now run their own independent cafeteria with eight employees. It regularly feeds 300 children — up from 70 a little over a decade ago.

In Britain, where school lunches can be an awful reminder of the country's fat- and starch-filled culinary past, celebrity chef Oliver's campaign to improve school food standards bore fruit in March when the government announced an extra $533 million to tackle the crisis. The extra money will be spent on better ingredients and in areas with the poorest services; beginning in September 2006, schools will be required to follow a set of nutrition guidelines drawn up by experts — though some schools say they are locked into decades-long contracts with their existing caterers. "When we saw Jamie Oliver's program it was fantastic, because it pointed out how stupid the contracting process was, and empowered parents to campaign for the food that our children deserve to eat," says Clara Donnelly, a parent who has campaigned for better meals in her child's Brighton school.

Of course, there are limits to the school-lunch approach to obesity. In many parts of Europe, children still eat their lunches at home, beyond the reach of nutritionists and reforming administrators. Most experts agree that regular exercise is also a crucial factor in weight control (many of the nutrition classes also push the benefits of exercise). And even improved education and government restrictions such as the proposed European Union ban on junk food ads targeting children won't keep all kids from sometimes eating unhealthy food. At first glance, the playgrounds of St. Joan of Arc look filled with active, healthy and energetic kids. But on a recent day, a group of friends — hiding from the teachers in a far corner — could be seen scoffing down sweets and chocolates with guilty delight. "Balance is the key," says Agnès Lommez, coordinator for the school district's food program. "Kids understand this. They can and should eat junk food. Just not every day."

• SIMON ROBINSON | London
• Parents and schools are finally waking up to the unpalatable truth about children's poor diets