Jamie Oliver's school dinners show improved results

[!Kaggen]

The proportion of 11-year-olds in Greenwich, south London, who did well in English and science rose after Oliver swept "turkey twizzlers" and chicken dinosaurs off canteen menus in favour of creamy coconut fish and Mexican bean wraps, according to a study of results in the south east London borough.

The number of "authorised absences" — which are generally due to illness – fell by 15% in the wake of his 2004 Feed Me Better campaign, brought into the nation's sitting rooms via the Channel 4 series Jamie's School Dinners.

But the annual conference of the Royal Economic Society also heard that the poorest pupils – those who are eligible for free school meals – did not seem to benefit. Instead it was mainly children from more middle class homes who saw their scores boosted after Oliver's junk food ban was implemented.

The researchers estimated that the proportion of students who got level 4 in their English Sats at key stage 2 increased by 4.5 percentage points after his intervention.

The percentage who got level 5 in science was up 6 percentage points, they reported.

from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/mar/29/jamie-oliver-school-dinners-meals

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

If they do their school lunches the way schools around here do, the lunch assistance program gets you a trip down the cooked food line because that's the cheap stuff. There's not a lot of variety, but it's food that's actually cooked on site, and the menus are put together by a dietician to be balanced. Lots of veggies, plus a carbohydrate and a protein, all cooked to within an inch of its life, then covered in gravy. All the milk or water you can drink, but no soda.

The junk food is stuff that comes assembled and just needs to be toasted or fried, like pizza, chicken nuggets, french fries and jalapeno poppers. Usually a soda machine. It's on a different line, and they don't take the free lunch tickets. Not surprising making the junk food healthier affects the middle class kids more. They're the ones buying treats with their own money rather than getting a tray full of flavor-free but nutritious slop in exchange for their ticket.

A

 

[!Kaggen]

I was thinking that the lower income kids might not be responding to the healthier food since they might be permanently impaired due to a combination of poor nutrition and stimulation neglect already at an early pre-school age when there brains were forming.
The richer kids might just be impaired due to their current poor diet, but have the capacity for better results.

It would be a big concern if poor nutrition and a lack of stimulation at an early formative age had a permanent affect which could not be corrected later.

This idea got me thinking about morality, mental capacity and mental health.

So many questions come up.

How much of an individuals sense of morality is a function of a healthy and well developed brain?

Is morality simply a property of a healthy fully developed brain?

Is moral religion simply a development to enforce on the poorer masses an abstract morality by richer people who had an inner sense of morality as a function of a healthier brain?

Would it not be better to spend money and time on making sure everyone developed a healthy well developed brain in there formative years than spend money on law and order when it was too late?

And finally is atheism a function of a healthy well developed brain?