How did we get to this?

How I do agree hilda! - I was furious about one of my DD's "Design Technology (Food)" [finger down throat icon required here] lessons. For the whole of one term they consisted of taking in a ready-made pizza base and different toppings each time. They were then required to design packaging and marketing strategies for each one. I was incandescent with rage! - what a load of bollocks! What happened to learning about feeding your family healthily as an act of love and nurture - grrrr!

Good posts when and Nightowl.

I taught Food Tech, hilda and I agree with a lot of what you say. The problem with food as a subject (in some schools) began when it was incorporated into the design and technology dept. All to do with funding, of course.

We managed to keep Home Economics as a separate GCSE subject which included Food and Nutrition but sadly, most students opted to take Food Tech because it included CAD and CAM which made the coursework more interesting.

We worked hard to incorporate as much 'real cooking' in practical lessons as we could. Nutrition was also taught as part of the curriculum. We were only allowed one hour for a practical and the classes were large so we were limited to simple meals or baked products.

On the one hand we had parents who were pleased to see their kids learning to cook and co-operated with providing ingredients and encouraged them to cook at home. On the other, we had parents who refused to buy ingredients as they said the dish was not something they liked to eat. We argued that modifying dishes to suit family tastes was part of the lesson so everyone could be catered for but the sad fact was we ended up funding more and more practical lessons because the parents either could not or would not support their children.

I agree with whenim64

Our child poverty levels are high compared with other European countries. I don't think the answer lies in bad parenting.

Whilst I agree with many of the points made, I don't think there is a simple link between poverty and malnutrition. I think many children from relatively affluent homes could be suffering dietary deficiencies because parents no longer have time or skills to cook nutritious meals, because our supermarkets are full of junk, and because the onslaught of advertising convinces people that they should exist on processed chemical-ridden crap. I don't think any one person or organisation is to blame but the multinational food manufacturers must bear some responsibility, as well as governments for allowing them to get away with it.

Quite right Hilda we should get back to basics and 'old' values. Probably the parents of these children and possibly their parents were not taught at home or in school how to cook healthily or care for a family. Most of us have the wherewithall to pick it up as we go along, but there are those, sadly who don't. I have a friend who 'teaches' the basics for a charity. It is very sad. It can take hours for them to take on board the simplest cookery - boiling an egg, preparation of vegetables etc.

Cookery is taught at the school Minibags attends.

When my DD who is now in her 30s was at school, they studied food technology. They were taught how raising agents worked etc. They did no real cookery, were not taught the basics of good home cooking or budgeting skills as I was. She would be lost without having been taught by me before she went to university. Do they still teach food tech in schools,or have they gone back to teaching actual cookery?

My DD is now a very good cook.

There are parents going without the nutrition they need to try and give their children enough nutritious food, because they cannot manage on low pay. A living wage is needed for every family, but so many are living in poverty. Some days I think we're back in Victorian times when I hear about children developing rickets, having stunted growth and such suppressed immune systems that they are constantly ill.

Post war, the provision of milk, orange juice and vitamins was intended to help children be healthier. Now, primary school children are getting free school dinners as it's obviously a recognised problem that the government has some responsibility for.

Whoever is responsible for this should be ashamed.

Then the level of "bad" parents must be growing existentially as the level of malnutrition is also growing existentially.

There will always be bad parents who just won't put their children first.