Blog post
Fictional food: The role of schools and reading in the culture of healthy eating
There is a growing body of evidence that . But does reading encourage a healthy eating culture? This blog post explores the potential to combine two educational initiatives: and published in July 2026, to positively influence the next generation both academically and culturally.
Children spend a huge percentage of their daily lives at school. Schools provide us with a unique platform to promote healthy eating, enhance wellbeing and consequently to improve academic outcomes. The 2024 evaluation of the 2023 policy to provide free school meals to every primary-aged child in state-funded schools in London highlighted the social and educational as well as nutritional benefits of the initiative, stating that: ‘More than a third (33%) of parents surveyed felt that access to a filling, healthy lunch means their children can concentrate better in lessons’ (p. 5).
The school system is in a unique position to influence our food and wider culture for the better. As Henry Dimbleby stresses in the blurb to Kevin Morgan’s book, Serving the Public: ‘One in twenty meals served in the UK is paid for by the government. That is why the transformation of catering in our public sector is key to any long-term improvement in our food culture’ (see Morgan, 2024).
The 2026 examined public attitudes to food education, polling more than 2,000 parents and 2,000 secondary school students. There was overwhelming agreement that cooking healthy meals and making informed food choices are key life skills. In many families, cooking from scratch and the have diminished due to a multitude of social changes. These include diverse and complex working patterns, digital distractions and easy access to cheap ultra processed foods (UPFs).
‘In many families, cooking from scratch and the act of eating together have diminished due to a multitude of social changes.’
Lunchtimes in school has been similarly squeezed. In his book, Schools Food & Social Learning, Gurpinder Lalli concludes that: ‘Social learning opportunities can be both created and harnessed by taking the opportunity to recognise the school meals as a time of day to learn’ (Lalli, 2019, p. 89).
One of the key findings of the Food Foundation’s 2026 was that: ‘Households in the lowest income fifth of the population would need to spend 85% on food to afford the government-recommended healthy diet’ (p. 4). These same children are likely to be exposed to fewer shared reading experiences at home. The executive summary of the highlights inequalities in early reading with just 50 per cent of children in the lowest-income households being read to as part of a daily bedtime routine compared to 69 per cent in non-low-income households. Research by the explores how inequalities in children’s early years outcomes are linked to socioeconomic disadvantage. Early shared reading is a powerful developmental tool which could help reverse this trend.
The UK-wide initiative to improve and enhance children’s exposure and access to texts to read for pleasure, via the National Year of Reading, provides an opportunity to address what is currently characterised as a food crisis in the UK, through the integration of food-centric literature. The aim is a simpler, healthier food culture, where UPFs are no longer the default and eating together for pleasure is rediscovered.
As highlighted by Sheila Dillon in an episode of in 2024: ‘Some of our earliest food memories are shaped by the books we read.’ As a former teacher, I have first-hand experience of fictional narratives shaping dietary habits. Reluctant eaters were encouraged to try a roast dinner because Harry, Hermione and Ron ate them with such gusto at Hogwarts in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. My own children were inspired to find and cook the recipe for Puttanesca sauce, after the Beaudelaire orphans prepared it for Count Olaf in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.
We could be on the brink of change. Recent in addition to the funding package for children’s literacy charities announced in the (p. 100) are an excellent foundation. Teachers in co-operation with parents make up a community that through exposure to books, social eating experiences and education in nutrition and food preparation could help fix our food culture so that the next generation can grow up to be happy, healthy and socially adept adults.
References
Morgan, K. (2024). Serving the public: The good food revolution in schools, hospitals and prisons. Manchester University Press.
Lalli, G. S. (2019). Schools, food and social learning: Routledge.