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Food provision, cUlture and Environment in secondary schooLs (FUEL) Study

The FUEL study was an evaluation of the national School Food Standards and related national policy in secondary schools in the West Midlands area, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

Research group leads

  • Professor Miranda Pallan

    Professor of Child and Adolescent Public Health

    Staff profile Dr Miranda Pallan, Professor of Child and Adolescent Public Health and MBChB Senior Tutor at the Department of Applied Health Sciences

  • Professor Peymané Adab

    Professor of Chronic Disease Epidemiology & Public Health

    Peymane Adab is Professor of Chronic Disease Epidemiology & Public Health at the University of Birmingham

FUEL Study - Summary of Findings

This video shares the findings of the FUEL Study.

Findings from the FUEL Study

Transcript

Voiceover: Teens in the UK consume three times the recommended amount of free sugars—the kinds of sugars found in sweets, cakes, and fizzy drinks. Only 12 percent of teens meet the recommendation of eating five fruit and vegetable portions per day. Young people spend a lot of their time in school, so the foods and drinks served there are a really important part of their diet in England. There are national standards to ensure food provided in schools contributes to a balanced diet, but how well do secondary schools meet these standards? And what do schools do to support healthy eating? To answer these questions, a team of researchers at the University of Birmingham have been looking into the food provided in secondary schools and how schools support healthy eating.

Caterer: It took some time. but now the kids are eating healthy meals here with the right amount of vegetables, protein, and starch in their day-to-day meal. Then they can get the healthy meal which we want to provide them.

Student: All their main meals are pretty healthy. Half of it is vegetables and the other half is protein.

Student: Favourites are usually the desserts, which are usually chocolates, [unintelligible], biscuits or cakes, which usually sell out quite quickly.

Caterer: They need to have to sell those kind of things which entice them to buy. When they buy, we make the revenue—that's how it works.

Student: The eating experience at my school is, it's kind of chaotic, because there are lots of lines that form.

Child: I think in a busy area, like a school canteen, it's mildly anxiety-inducing because you're always thinking: “I'm not going to get a seat, I'm gonna have to sit alone or sit at a table of people I don't know.”

Child: It's a little bit awkward to go up to a teacher physically or email them about it, and I think it would be just a lot easier for students if they could just make quick suggestions, rather than having to go through a whole process, to go find a teacher and email leadership.

Child: A lot of people believe that healthy eating is disgusting, but I guess teaching ways to make it healthy and delicious would be good, moving forward.

Voiceover: The FUEL research team are now working with policy makers and government to find ways to further support secondary school students to have healthy diets.

We asked secondary schools across the Midlands to be involved in the study. We asked pupils from years 7, 9 and 10, key school staff and governors to take part.

The study started in March 2019 and finished in October 2022.

Watch the FUEL Study for Schools video on Biteable.

Meet the team

Professor Peymané Adab

Aims of the project

The aim of the FUEL study was to compare secondary schools legally required to meet the School Food Standards with those that are not legally required to meet the standards. We explored which food was provided and how healthy eating was supported in these two groups of schools.

We also aimed to assess the dietary intake and dental health of pupils, and compared these across the two groups of schools.

In addition, we captured the variation in how the School Food Standards and supporting school food policy are implemented, and explored whether the level of implementation and support for healthy eating is associated with pupils’ dietary intake and dental health.

Why is this research needed?

  • Nearly a third of adolescents have excess weight.
  • Almost half of 15 year olds have dental caries.
  • Excess sugar consumption is a major contributor to increased energy intake, obesity, and poor dental health.
  • Adolescents aged 11-18 years in the UK consume three times the recommended amount of their total energy intake from free sugars.

What are the School Food Standards?

  • Nutritional standards for school meals were first set in 1941, with the aim of improving the quality of children’s diets.
  • There were no school food standards from 1980 to 2001.
  • Food-based standards were re-introduced to schools in 2001 in response to concerns about children’s diets and findings that school lunches lacked key micronutrients and were too high in fat and sugar.
  • In 2006, new national School Food Standards that were both nutrient- and food-based were introduced in England following a national School Meals Review.
  • In 2013, following a further Government commissioned independent review, a School Food Plan (SFP) was published with recommendations for Government, schools and head teachers to further support healthy eating. These included a recommendation to revise the School Food Standards to make them less onerous and cheaper for school food providers to implement.
  • These revised standards came into force in January 2015 and are a legal requirement for most state schools. However, all academies and free schools set up between 2010 and 2014 are exempt from the legal obligation to meet the standards.

  • This gives an opportunity to examine the influence of a legal requirement to meet school food standards by comparing schools which are, versus those which are not required by law to meet them.

Visit The School Food Plan website.

Visit the Intake24 website.

What was involved?

We recruited 44 secondary schools in the West Midlands to take part (22 that are required to adhere and 22 that do not have to adhere to the standards).

We compared the provision, sale and consumption of foods in schools and how schools implemented the School Food Standards and the recommendations set out in the School Food Plan.

This was achieved through a variety of data collection methods.

  1. Schools

Schools taking part in the FUEL study were asked to complete a number of tasks:

  • Share some key data and documents with the researchers about school food
  • Identify staff and governors to complete a questionnaire about school food
  • Work with the research team to support the consent process for pupils and parents
  • Arrange for two timetabled classroom sessions in which pupils will complete an online questionnaire
  • Distribute information and questionnaires to parents of pupils invited to take part
  • Allow researchers to visit the school to undertake an observation of school food

2. Pupils

Children who took part in the FUEL study were asked to complete a questionnaire requesting information on their general health and well-being and dental health, what they had eaten in the past 24 hours, as well as their ethnicity, age, sex and home postcode.

3. Parents

Parents of children taking part were asked to fill in a questionnaire about their views on the school food provision at their child’s school and requesting information on their sex and age group.

4. School staff and governors

School governors and key staff members, including those in management, teaching and catering roles, were asked to complete a questionnaire exploring their views on school food provision, the eating environment, the food curriculum and implementation of the national School Food Standards and the related School Food Plan in their school.

FUEL Study newsletters

Findings

Video:

Watch the full version of our video sharing some key findings from the FUEL Study.

Reports:

FUEL Infographic full version (accessible): [Docx, 16.3KB]

FUEL Infographic full version: [PDF, 3.7MB]

FUEL Infographic short version (accessible) : [Docx, 20.2KB]

FUEL Infographic short version: [PDF, 748KB]

Published papers:

Full citation: Murphy M, Pallan M, Lancashire E, Duff R, Adamson AJ, Bartington S, Frew E, Griffin T, Hurley KL, Parry J, Passmore S, Ravaghi V, Sitch A, Spence S, Rowland MK, Wheeldon S, Adab P. The Food provision, cUlture and Environment in secondary schooLs (FUEL) study: protocol of a mixed methods evaluation of national School Food Standards implementation in secondary schools and their impact on pupils’ dietary intake and dental health. BMJ open. 2020 Oct 1;10:e042931.

Full citation: Pallan M, Murphy M, Morrison B, Pokhilenko I, Sitch A, Frew E, Rawdin C, Adams R, Adamson A, Bartington S, Dobell A, Duff R, Griffin T, Hurley K, Lancashire E, McLeman L, Passmore S, Ravaghi V, Spence S, Adab P. School food policy in secondary schools in England and its impact on adolescents' diets and dental health: the FUEL multiple-methods study. Public Health Research. 2024 Nov 14;12:1-67.

Full citation: Pallan M, Murphy M, Morrison B, Sitch A, Adamson A, Bartington S, Dobell A, Duff R, Frew E, Griffin T, Hurley K, Lancashire E, McLeman L, Passmore S, Pokhilenko I, Rowland M, Ravaghi V, Spence S, Adab P. National school food standards in England: a cross-sectional study to explore compliance in secondary schools and impact on pupil nutritional intake. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 2024 Oct 24;21:123.

Full citation: Ashraf A, Murphy M, Duff R, Adab P, Pallan M. Sustainability of Diets Consumed by UK Adolescents and Associations Between Diet Sustainability and Meeting Nutritional Requirements. Nutrients. 2025 Jun 27;17(13):2140.

Contact

Telephone: +44(0)121 414 8072

Email: fuelstudy@contacts.bham.ac.uk

X/Twitter: @FUELStudy

  • Funding

    This study is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).