I wrote last week about my successful campaign to see financial education included in the National Curriculum. I've also been pushing hard to improve and expand the teaching of cookery. That too has now been included in the curriculum; a move I thoroughly welcome.
Soon after being elected, I visited the cookery club at Haydonleigh School and watched the children as they learned how to make various recipes. Not only were they enjoying it, they were also picking up skills that would be useful for the rest of their lives. It is more cost effective and healthier to cook meals from scratch, and with rising childhood obesity it's vital that we teach our young people these lessons.
However, cookery lessons alone are not the answer to childhood obesity. Indeed, my childhood was fuelled by additives that would probably strip paint and enough sugar to power a small town, but because I was running around all day convinced that I was the next Gary Lineker, I was not overweight. When I was young, most housing estates were not the high-density concrete jungles they often are now, but afforded their residents access to green open space. This is vital for young families, especially as gardens get smaller. It would be easy to tweak our planning framework to ensure access to safe, local open spaces so that children can have the kind of active outdoor lifestyle that my generation took for granted.
We also need to be cleverer about the way we use our existing facilities. Swindon is full of primary and secondary schools with excellent sports facilities, yet at the end of the school day and at weekends they are often locked away behind fences and subject to hire charges. These need to be opened to local groups and residents, so kids can make best use of the facilities on their doorsteps.
Government and Local Authorities are working together to make a difference to childhood obesity rates. The Council's youth service does an excellent job reaching out to vulnerable children, but it's the vast majority of kids who present a challenge too. Youth clubs are not the draw that they used to be. We need to make use of local school facilities instead, providing activities that young people are desperate to do, whether football sessions or street dance lessons, in familiar and safe surroundings. The specialist support would remain, but the reach would be much greater.
Cookery skills and healthy eating are important, but so is making an active lifestyle easily accessible to all our children. Gary Lineker is out, Bradley Wiggins is in, but the enthusiasm remains. We must do all we can to harness it.
