Fears over a rise in underweight children due to cost of living crisis in Calderdale

Cabinet member for Children and Young People’s Services, Councillor Adam Wilkinson (Lab, Sowerby Bridge) said the council knew some families were increasingly relying on the food their children received from school.

“We’ve always been quite concerned about childhood obesity and the weight of children going into reception (classes) and looking at how they are progressing.

“But I think increasingly children being underweight and malnourished is going to be a big problem for us,” he said.

Senior Calderdale councillors agreed school food was very important in terms of children’s health and wellbeing and the impact it had on their learning, particularly with the cost of living crisis in mind.

Calderdale Council’s Cabinet was considering recommendations from the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Board about school food, particularly bearing less well off families in the borough in mind.

Members of the board had extensively visited schools throughout the borough taking note of resources they had, different from place to place, and menus produced.

Board Chair Coun Ashley Evans (Lib Dem, Warley) urged Cabinet to take recommendations seriously and act on them.

These include the council’s Public Health service identify funding to develop a “core offer” around health, nutrition and wellbeing addressing local need, and schools and academies working together so best practice can be shared, including all schools being able to access nutritious, locally-sourced and affordable produce.

Partnership was crucial, also with businesses and community groups, and across all ages where children could learn from older people’s experiences – for example, schools, care homes and allotment owners could link up to share experience and knowledge.

All council departments should also be included in the mix, said Coun Evans – a combined effort of all these parts of council and society was crucial.

Data should be available for the board to use, including children’s own responses from the annual electronic Health Needs Assessment and a key to all these things will be measurable outcomes where appropriate, he said.

Cabinet members agreed officers should look closely at the board’s proposals and develop them.