Despite expensive government campaigns and the best efforts of Jamie Oliver, Britons are still missing their ‘five-a-day' fruit and veg targets. A study of the consumer habits (entitled 'Health of Britain - Perspective on Nutrition 2008' ) revealed that just 12 per cent of the population eats the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Another 12 per cent do not eat any fruit and vegetables at all.
Unsurprisingly, the study found that the groups most likely to meet the target are the wealthy and the over 45s, with children and the poor more likely to consume none at all.
This must be depressing for ministers, who have been immersing themselves in ‘youf culture' in order to encourage young people to eat healthily. Not only does the DoH's 5-a-day site offer ‘vegetable makeovers' and an interactive game called ‘sumo smoothies', the Food Standards Agency is bang on trend with its ‘Strictly Yum Dancing' feature, involving characters such as ‘Tina Tuna', ‘Barry Burger' and ‘Terri Tomato'. This is apparently based on the FSA's new live spectacle, performed at this year's BBC Good Food Show. The mind boggles.
Real life D-list celebrities are also helping out the Department, for example, EastEnder's Patsy Palmer provides a video message on healthy eating as does former glamour model Melinda Messenger.
However, even celebs are finding it a challenge to entice people away from their turkey twizzlers. Poor Jamie Oliver is reportedly fed up with mothers sabotaging his healthy school meals campaign and people generally giving him stick.
This is so much the case that (according to his mum) he is on the verge of abandoning his healthy eating crusades: his latest TV project, to revive home cooking skills in Rotherham, took him to the local football club..where he was the subject of ‘obscene chanting'.
Jamie is surely disappointed to hear that despite shaming ministers into funding healthier school meals, new figures show that kids in two thirds of schools shun canteen meals for unhealthy packed lunches or fast food from nearby outlets.
A separate survey by Babybel suggests that even those bringing in wholemeal sandwiches and carrot sticks may not be eating them. According to the poll, seven out of ten children regularly swap the contents of their lunchboxes, while one in five chucks them straight in the bin.
Celebrities may walk away, acknowledging defeat. However, for health professionals, the battle goes on and ministers too are faced with no alternative but to continue campaigning.
Their only other option would be to alter the target, a course of action health secretary Alan Johnson may well be advised to take. As he joked on the Politics Show:
‘It's important to get the message that five-a-day isn't five bottles of wine, it's five portions of fruit and veg.'
If only it were five bottles of wine a day, binge boozing Britons would have a much better chance of hitting the jackpot!