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1. INTRODUCTION
Poor diet is recognised as a significant contributor to Scotland's poor health record. Improving children's diet can have a major impact on the health of children with beneficial outcomes for educational attainment, physical well being and improved health later in life. Healthy eating patterns established in childhood are more likely to lead to healthy eating later in life.
The national Free Fruit in schools initiative aims to provide one portion of fruit three times a week during term time to all primary I and primary 2 pupils in local authority managed schools. The initiative is an additional measure to the recommendations made by the Expert Panel on School Meals in their Report, Hungry for Success 1.
Both initiatives are part of the Scottish Executive's Health Improvement Programme which recommends eating more fruit and vegetables. Improving the uptake of school meals and fresh fruit is also an essential part of supporting those children in most need.
The Free Fruit initiative targets younger children where eating fruit is most likely to be habit forming and where health gain might be greatest in the longer term. Many of the primary 1 and primary 2 pupils will have received fruit in nursery school and this initiative continues to encourage children to develop the habit of eating fruit. The initiative may also discourage them from snacking on high fat, sugar or salt alternatives and also contribute to an improvement in dental health.
Findings from a similar scheme piloted in England, the National School Fruit Scheme 2, ( NSFS) reported a positive impact on attention levels, learning ability and children's behaviour generally. Over half the schools (55%) involved in the scheme also reported an improvement in the ethos and atmosphere in the classroom. The NSFS scheme helped some children overcome a reluctance to eat fruit while others tried fruit they had never eaten before. In some cases children were eating more fruit generally instead of less healthy options.
The Scottish Executive has provided £2m per year for financial years 2003-04 to 2005-06 to introduce the Free Fruit initiative across all publicly funded schools in Scotland. The initiative had been implemented in most schools by December 2003 and the 2005 SEED School Meal census shows that almost 100% of primary schools were giving free fresh fruit to P1 and P2 pupils. Only four local authorities did not report full coverage of the initiative within all of their primary schools.
The Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen) was commissioned by the Schools Group Analytical Service Unit in the Education Department of the Scottish Executive in February 2005 to evaluate the implementation of the Free Fruit in Schools initiative in Scotland.
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