School Food Trust: Protect pupils from junk food

School pupils should be prevented from eating junk food in their lunch break through an off-site ban, the School Food Trust (SFT) believes.

It has published research today showing the average number of junk food outlets per school for each of Britain's local authorities in a bid to highlight the issue.

The worst local authority is Brighton and Hove which offers 46 purveyors of junk food per school, twice the national average.

SFT chief executive Judy Hargadon says action needs to be taken to prevent children ruining their health.

"At the moment school canteens have to compete with a myriad of takeaways, chippies, and sweet shops for pupils' dinner money," she said.

"We all know that some children will go for chips five times a week if they are allowed to. The problem is that this is damaging their long-term health, and is also threatening the viability of school lunch services."

Nine in ten parents support the stay-on-site policy, a poll released today by the SFT suggests.