Why Food Companies should not sponsor School Programs

It's a major conflict of interest and creates, and sometimes implements, faulty programs
for kids:

School slim campaign sponsored by Nestle is attacked

A Children's healthy eating campaign sponsored by a chocolate firm is providing youngsters with wrong information on how to stay slim, it has been claimed.

Nestle, which makes Yorkies and Milkybars, is supporting the PhunkyFoods scheme along with Northern Foods, who make pizzas, and Cargill, who produce cooking oil for chips.

The campaign is also backed by Heart of Birmingham Primary Care Trust.

The NHS unit pays up to £3,000 for the private company to teach hundreds of primary school pupils at 10 schools across the city how to fight the flab.

But the scheme has been criticised by the Children’s Food Campaign who say it gives the youngsters “misinformation” about their diet.

As well as making chocolate bars Nestle produces Carnation cream, Ski and Munch Bunch yoghurts, Nesquik milkshakes and sugar-coated cereals including Cheerios and Chocapic.

Richard Watts, of the Children’s Food Campaign, said: “We found quite a few problems with Phunkyfoods school packs, including advice to children to eat something from every food group for breakfast, including fat and sugary foods.

“It also reports that people should eat three dairy products a day, which is not official dietary advice. And there are claims that dairy foods are protection against dental health problems, which is something that has been dismissed by the European Food Safety Agency.

“We are very sceptical about major food companies getting involved in schools projects.

Education

“There are claims being made that are wrong and so many abuses that it is not an accident. There is a range of misinformation and bad advice.”

Nearly one in three children starting secondary school is overweight or obese in inner-city Birmingham.

Health chiefs drafted in PhunkyFoods to help them reach Government targets of tackling obesity – even though the Government refused to fund the PhunkyFoods idea, forcing owners to obtain private sponsors.

PhunkyFoods offers weekly lesson plans for schools about food and exercise in a “fun manner” through drama and music, using dietary advice company Purely Nutrition, which is another arm of the PhunkyFoods business.

Sorrell Fearnell, founder of PhunkyFoods and managing director of Purely Nutrition, denied that the food companies had an input into content of its curriculum.

“This is not an opportunity for the sponsors to promote foods to children,” Ms Fearnell said. “A Government White Paper pointed to the shared responsibility of food manufacturers and the education sector in getting children to make healthy choices and that is what PhunkyFoods is doing.

“Companies fund it from their Corporate Social Responsibility budgets.

“It means cost to schools is lowered from £1,440 per year to just £295, and it wouldn’t happen without this subsidy.

“No advertising to children is permitted and we use consistent dietary advice. If the Government turned round tomorrow and said they would fund it, we wouldn’t need sponsors and would do the programme exactly the same.”

Kevin Haywood, Head of Public Health Programmes for Heart of Birmingham Teaching Primary Care Trust, said: “PhunkyFoods is one of a number of projects that we are commissioning on a pilot basis in 10 inner-city schools.

“We have been working with numerous organisations to identify innovative ways of tackling the growing problem of obesity in children and to provide children and families with advice and guidance to enable healthier lifestyle choices to be made.”

Northern Foods is one of the UK’s leading food producers with revenues of £888 million.

Nestle, the world’s largest food and beverage manufacturer, is already at the centre of a boycott over claims by the International Baby Food Action Network that it violates marketing requirements for baby milk by undermining breastfeeding, particularly in developing countries.

It was also one of the food giants that was criticised for its “misleading” nutrition labelling, making foods seem healthier than they are, according to the National Heart Forum.