SCHOOL MEALS
Corporate Watch
September 2005
5 Commercialising school environments
Another area of concern relating to the increasing penetration of the private sector into state education is the commercialisation of school environments through sponsorship deals, business-provided teaching materials, and marketing and vending machines in schools. These very much work against efforts to improve children's health by allowing companies whose profit is made by selling unhealthy food a privileged position in their attempts to appeal to children.
4.1 Sponsorship in schools
Teaching unions and health experts have expressed serious concerns about the increasing penetration into schools of corporate sponsorship by companies, which in return for providing resources for schools are given excellent opportunities to market their products and establish brand loyalty amongst children. George Monbiot refers to the view of education as a commodity, in particular as an advertising venue, with the European Round Table of Industrialists suggesting that 'the provision of education is a market opportunity and should be treated as such.' [1]Investigations into the growing incidence of child obesity have focused on the role that commercialisation of the education environment plays in encouraging unhealthy lifestyles amongst children. The International Obesity Task Force looks at food and drinks companies' heavy marketing directed at children to establish brand recognition, and lobbying of government.[2] The National Audit Office 2001 report says that 'commercial involvement' through sponsorship schemes 'has the effect of directly promoting sales of particular products' and 'may encourage children and their families to buy more snack foods with a high fat, salt and sugar content,' acting 'directly in opposition to initiatives to discourage over-dependence on such energy-dense snack foods.' [3] (See 'Walkers Crisps for schools', below)
Teaching materials
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) links the growth of marketing in schools to the 'schools funding crisis' and the pressure, resulting from government under-investment, on schools to accept sponsorship deals and teaching resources offered by companies.[4] The government also encourages a climate of cooperation between businesses and schools. The Department for Education and Skills' 'Education and business links' website (EBNet) encourages businesses to have more involvement in Education through which they can 'acquire better market knowledge... gain new and more loyal customers... and improve our nation's competitiveness in the international arena.' [5] The NUT is 'deeply alarmed' at a situation in which
'some of the world's largest corporations, who are responsible for undermining health, environment and sustainable development, are at the same time being actively encouraged to become partners with schools and to provide core educational materials and services.'Many of these companies are specifically promoting unhealthy food products. For example, a 'key skills in context' website contains a section on nutrition povided by Nestle, manufacturer of highly processed and packaged fatty products.[6] George Monbiot refers to a teaching pack distributed by Cadbury's which claimed that 'chocolate is a wholesome food that tastes really good... [it] gives you energy and important nutrients that your body needs to work properly.'[7]
Cadbury's GetActive!
This scheme promotes Cadbury's chocolate in return for providing sports and leisure facilities to schools. It is a useful way for the company to show that it is working to tackle problems of obesity, and even manages to create a platform suggesting that it is an inactive, sedentary lifestyle that is the major cause of obesity, rather than excessive consumption of the very products the company is pushing children to buy in return for the equipment. Cadbury's defended the scheme, saying that schools were 'free to... participate... at their own choice,' and that while 'chocolate is made to be enjoyed and consumed sensibly as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle,' 'children's activity levels have decreased dramatically over the last 30 years while calorific consumption has decreased' - a suggestion that this, not nutrition, is the key cause in obesity.[8] The scheme gained support from government. The Consumers' Association described it as 'an irresponsible ploy to encourage unhealthy eating among kids.'[9] The Food Commission calculated that to get a set of volleyball net posts through the scheme, a school would need to spend £2000 on chocolate with 1.25 million calories, and that 'a conservative estimate shows that a ten-year-old child consuming enough chocolate to earn a basketball through the Cadbury's scheme would need to play basketball for 90 hours to burn off the calories.' [10]
Walkers Crisps for Schools
From 1999 to 2003 Walkers' crisps ran a sponsorship campaign offering books to schools in return for tokens collected from crisp packets, with the aim of making a real contribution to literacy in the community, whilst supporting the Walkers’ brand values and regard in the public eye.[11] The scheme was extremely popular and actively encouraged children and their families to eat as many crisps as possible - crisps being a very unhealthy snack high in fat and salt and low in nutritional value. It constituted an incentive scheme for a certain pattern of consumption, and made teachers and parents into 'de facto marketing reps' for Pepsico, the company owning Walkers.[12] It assisted in creating a situation in which a quarter of all packets of crisps sold were sold to children. [13]
A study by Joanna Walker conducting interviews with librarians and teachers in nine schools in Sheffield suggested that schools were pushed to participate in the scheme by a shortage of funding for books and 'a government in recent years whose idea of improving funding looks towards alternative sources and partnerships involving the private sector.'[14] David Blunkett, then Education and Employment Secretary, called the scheme 'an excellent example of how business can get involved on a national level.'[15] According to the study, teachers, parents and pupils were disappointed with the amount and quality of books received compared to the amount spent on crisps and the amount of effort put in sending off the tokens.[16] Interviewees were concerned that the scheme was encouraging brand loyalty [17] and pressurising children and parents into buying the product.[18]
4.2 Vending machines in schools
Through vending machines, companies are allowed into schools to sell products such as soft drinks high in sugar and sweets and chocolate high in fat. Britain looks to be following the example of the US, where through 'pouring rights' contracts schools receive money from the company for the amount of products sold to children.[19] A third of schools allow lunchtime access to vending machines and tuck shops selling sweets and chocolate.[20] In June 2005, the British Medical Association called on the government to ban unhealthy vending machines in schools.[21] A Guardian/ICM poll in October 2003 showed that the majority of parents supported a ban of vending machines selling crisps, choclate and fizzy drinks in schools, with an even bigger majority amongst parents from lower income families.[22]Despite these calls, vending machines remain.[23] In PFI schools, the terms of the PFI contract can hamper efforts to remove unhealthy vending machines, as with school meal contracts. According to The Guardian, the Department for Education and Skills admitted that where PFI contractors have included profits from vending machines in their contracts, any losses incurred by removing them could be passed back to the school. [24]
References
[1] George Monbiot, 'Captive State: the Corporate Takeover of Britain,' Macmillan, 2000 p.331
[2] International Obesity Task Force and European Association for the Study of Obesity, 'Obesity in Europe, the case for action' London Sept 2002 p.8-9 www.iotf.org/media/euobesity.pdf (viewed 09.09.2005)
[3] National Audit Office, 'Tackling Obesity in England,' London Feb 2001 p.45 www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/00-01/0001220.pdf (viewed 09.09.2005)www.nao.org.uk/publications/nao_reports/00-01/0001220.pdf
[4] NUT - Briefing on schools' role in promoting child health and combating commercialisation www.teachers.org.uk/resources/pdf/combating_comm.pdf (viewed 09.09.2005)
[5] DfES, Education business links website www.dfes.gov.uk/ebnet/business/index.cfm (viewed 09.09.2005)
[6] NUT - Briefing on schools' role in promoting child health and combating commercialisation www.teachers.org.uk/resources/pdf/combating_comm.pdf (viewed 09.09.2005)
[7] George Monbiot, 'Captive State: the Corporate Takeover of Britain,' Macmillan, 2000 p.333
[8] Cadbury's website, 'the get active debate' www.cadbury.co.uk/EN/CTB2003/talk_to_us/faq/getactive_debate.htm (09.09.2005)
[9] Kevin Morgan, 'School Meals and Sustainable Food Chains,' The Caroline Walker Society Lecture, Royal Society 03.11.04 p.5-6 www.cf.ac.uk/cplan/downloads/kjm-lecture.pdf (viewed 09.09.2005)
[10] Food Commission, 'Cadbury's wants children to eat 2 million kg of fat - to get fit,' 29.04.2003 www.foodcomm.org.uk/cadbury_03.htm (viewed 09.09.2005)
[11] Business in the community website www.bitc.org.uk/resources/case_studies/crmwalkers.html (viewed 09.09.2005)
[12] Geof Rayner, 'Today's lesson: get munching!' Health Matters Issue 44, Spring 2001 www.healthmatters.org.uk/stories/rayner44.html' (viewed 06.08.2005)
[13] The Soil Association, 'Food for Life: Do our children need healthy food?'
www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/9f788a2d1160a9e580256a71002a3d2b/65a3b4988446e96280256db400380e4c/$FILE/Healthy%20local%20organic%20school%20meals.pdf (viewed 09.09.2005)
[14] Joanna Walker, 'Free Books for Schools - an inquiry into the commercial sponsorship of school resource materials (the hidden curriculum of big businesses in schools)' Sheffield, 1999 p.8
http://dagda.shef.ac.uk/dissertations/1998-99/waller.pdf (viewed 09.09.2005)
[15] ibid p.8
[16] ibid. p.35-38
[17] ibid p. 65
[18] ibid. p.43
[19] Kevin Morgan, 'School Meals and Sustainable Food Chains,' The Caroline Walker Society Lecture, Royal Society 03.11.04 p.5-6 www.cf.ac.uk/cplan/downloads/kjm-lecture.pdf (viewed 06.08.05)
[20] 'School Meals in secondary schools in England,' Kings College London, Nutrition Works! And National Centre for Social Research for Dfes and FSA, www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RB557.pdf (viewed 06.08.05)
[21] 'Ban unhealthy vending machines - doctors,' The Guardian 22.06.2005 http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,,1512062,00.html (viewed 27.09.2005)
[22] James Miekle, 'ban junk food from schools, says poll,' The Guardian 22.10.03 www.guardian.co.uk/life/news/story/0,12976,1068386,00.html (viewed 27.09.2005)
[23] International Obesity Task Force and European Association for the Study of Obesity, 'Obesity in Europe, the case for action' London Sept 2002 p.8-9 www.iotf.org/media/euobesity.pdf (viewed 27.09.2005)
[24] Felicity Lawrence and Katherine Quarmby, 'Private deals block Jamie's school dinners,' The Guardian 25.04.2005 www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1469502,00.html (viewed 27.09.05)