The survey of more than 27,500 children in the UK, the largest of its kind, was conducted as part of the BNF’s Healthy Eating Week, launched today by Princess Anne.
More than 3,000 schools are participating in the Week during which over 1.2m children will be learning valuable lessons about healthy eating, cooking and where foods come from.
Roy Ballam, BNF education programme manager, said: “Schools throughout the UK require a national framework and guidance for food and nutrition education to support the learning needs of children and young people, especially at a time when levels of childhood obesity are soaring.
“Through Healthy Eating Week, we hope to start the process of re-engaging children with the origins of food, nutrition and cooking, so that they grow up with a fuller understanding of how food reaches them and what a healthy diet and lifestyle consists of.
“The fact that so many schools in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have registered to participate in the Week demonstrates their understanding of how important healthy eating is and their commitment to giving children a solid grounding from which to create healthy lives for themselves.”
Further findings of the BNF study reveal that an encouraging number of the youngest primary school children recognise the eatwell plate – 64% of 5-8 year olds identified it correctly from four different images.
However, when presented with four pie charts and asked which best represented the eatwell plate, less than half (45%) of 8-11 year olds answered correctly.
Over three quarters (77%) of primary school children and nearly nine out of every ten (88%) secondary school pupils know that people should consume five or more portions of fruit and vegetables each day.
However, 67% of primary school children and 81% of secondary school pupils reported eating four or less portions of fruit and vegetables daily, while two in every five children at secondary school don’t think that frozen fruit and vegetables count towards their five a day.
The research also shows that an alarming number of children do not eat breakfast each morning, which increases with the age of the children.
On the day of the survey, eight per cent of primary school children said they hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning; this increased to nearly a quarter (24%) in 11-14 year olds, and then to over a third (32%) of 14-16 year olds.
When quizzed on the more general point as to whether they have breakfast each morning, 6% of primary school children, 19% of 11-14 year olds and a quarter of 14-16 year olds reported not eating breakfast every day.
Scientific evidence confirms that consumption of fish, in particular oily fish, is beneficial to health. National recommendations are that children and adults should consume at least two portions of fish each week.
However, in the BNF survey 16% of children of primary school age and one in five children of secondary school age said they never eat fish. Averaged across all age groups, from five to 16 years old only 17% of children in the UK said they eat fish twice a week.