ABSTRACT
Improving children’s diets and reducing childhood obesity is a priority in many countries including the UK. Schools are a common environment to target due to the almost universal attendance by children aged up to 16 years. School meal standards have been re-introduced across the UK and have improved the quality of food provided by schools. Different systems exist across the globe, such as schools only providing school meals or only providing packed lunches. These different systems will be discussed. Generally, fewer policies exist for packed lunches compared to school meals and therefore remain lower in quality. Schools also play a role in the wider school environment, for example, by including school gardens or programmes to increase children’s fruits and vegetables consumption. This chapter reviews school-based policies introduced in England, and elsewhere, and explores opportunities to improve children’s diets in the school environment.
