Children are to be bribed to eat up their greens through reward schemes offering cinema tickets for choosing healthy school dinners.
John Reid, the Health Secretary, has been impressed by experiments using a supermarket-style 'reward points' scheme to encourage children to improve their diets and is seeking to expand them.
Pupils in the Coventry project are given merit slips if they choose fruit, brown bread or bran cereals at the school's voluntary breakfast club, which serves meals before school.
They also get extra points for taking part in pre-school exercise classes. Merits can be saved up and exchanged for prizes, from pens and rubbers to £5 cinema vouchers.
Critics may argue that children should not need to be bribed into better eating habits. But Jan Jenkins, headmistress of Ash Green Secondary School, which has run the Department of Health-funded experiment, argues that if they can instil lifelong good habits it will be worthwhile.
'We find they are thinking about what they will eat when they come into breakfast because they want to gain the points,' she says.
'We are setting up, hopefully, good patterns for the future. If children start the day with a healthy meal it helps their thinking skills and concentration.'
The government is due to publish soon a report on school meals which is expected to be damning about the quality of food dished up to pupils. A campaign group, the Soil Association, recently published research denouncing school dinners as 'muck off a truck', arguing that more is spent per head on prison food than on meals for pupils, forcing caterers to resort to low-quality, over-processed junk foods.
However, purging canteens of chips and burgers risks encouraging children to go out at lunchtime in search of junk food - or skip lunch altogether if they do not like the healthier alternative. Instead ministers want schools to offer a choice, but to steer children towards the healthier versions. Reward schemes such as Ash Green's - originally set up to encourage good behaviour and discipline, but recently extended to cover diet and exercise - are seen as key incentives.
'We are trying out different schemes around the country to see how you can encourage kids to eat healthier food,' said a Department of Health source. 'This is one John Reid is looking at closely.'
Other projects being funded include schools growing their own fruit and vegetables in the grounds, and cookery clubs with parents teaching them how to make up healthy lunchboxes.
