In a new study released today, the Audit Commission confirms that the health of under-fives has deteriorated in the past decade despite more than £10 billion spent with disappointing results.  Nigel Denby, Grub4Life.org.uk’s founder blames the lack of basic nutrition standards and consistency in childcare with some providers spending less than 25p per child per day on food.03-02-2010

 www.grub4life.org.uk is a nutrition community set up for parents, carers and teachers of under 5’s in the UK.

He says: - “less than 25p per child per day is spent on food, this added to poor training and the demise of cookery skills at home and in schools have added to today’s abysmal results. The Audit Commission’s findings underline what we at Grub4life have seen working at the coal face of under 5’s nutrition.  We wonder if disadvantaged kids really stand a chance of a healthy life. £11 Billion seems to have been spent for poorer kids to just get fatter and have more bad teeth

The drive for basic nutrition standards for kids in education has completely bi- passed the under 5s - childcare providers have no fixed nutritional standards with some spending as little as 25p per head. As a result too many children receive woefully inadequate nutrition for the first few years of their lives – when the foundations for long term health are laid down. We agree with the Audit Commission I n their recommendations to see a single set of local priorities agreed by those responsible for driving improvements in children's health, supported by a clear statement of government policy.

We face a generation of parents who were never taught to cook or parent because the education system at the time didn’t think it was important enough.
Little wonder then that more under 5s today are fatter, have poorer dental health and poorer long term health prospects than they did 10 years ago.”