Obesity.

I do agree with the original post in many ways BUT I did Domestic Science to O Level and I have always been overweight. It taught me a love of cooking and good food. we learnt all the varieties of pastry, rich sauces, roasts, cakes etc which are lovely but hardly diet food- we didn't know about healthy eating then. I do think it would help if people learnt to cook. One of my observations however is how small and inconvenient modern kitchens are - not conducive to proper cooking.

I would have loved to do Domestic Science. I always envied those of my friends who came home from school with a tin of things they had cooked. I did do needlework at primary school and made a petticoat. But I was lucky in that my mother taught me to cook. Every Sunday morning we made something as well as dinner.

NanaandGrampy At my grammar school we did all the sciences too, as well as domestic science, that was the norm. It certainly is still the norm in some schools today. As I said in my previous post, at my DGC 's school all pupils learn to cook the basics from scratch, moving on to more complicated things and have lessons in nutrition and healthy eating alongside the practicals. The difference is that at my school the boys did woodwork whereas at DGC's school boys and girls learn about nutrition and how to cook.

I too went to a Grammar School and learnt both Domestic Science and Needlework but equally I did all the sciences, so consider myself very lucky.

We learnt how to cook all the basics from scratch and then onto more complicated things. I’d love to see that level of cookery brought back into schools instead of some of the no doubt educational things they do learn that have no bearing on real life.

BBbevan It's strange there was such variation across the country. When I went to a South Staffs grammar school in 1954 we had needlework lessons in the first term in which we made gingham aprons and caps. These were worn in the domestic science lessons which followed and which then continued until we started O level courses. We began with making coffee and ended with making a Christmas cake.

Look out for high school kids on their way to school and you will see packets of crisps and high energy drinks in their hot little hands. Perhaps good eating could start with parents insisting on a proper breakfast and not giving their kids the funds to buy rubbish to eat every day.

My cookery lessons at school were a hated subject because we learned only how to cook bland food whereas I learned my real love of cooking from my parents and my maternal grandmother who taught me to cook spicy middle eastern food and French and Italian cooking. I was luck enough to grow up with lots of recipe books from around the world and three excellent cooks including my father who worked with post graduate students and learned how to prepare great Indian food from them!

Bathsheba In my area domestic science , cooking , sewing etc, was only taught in secondary modern schools. This was in the 1950s At grammar school the sciences were, physics, chemistry and biology.

Sorry about my negative post earlier.
I think you're right, Pamela when you say
"If young people get used to eating well then, hopefully, that habit will continue."
However - I went into town on the bus this pm. A young woman got on with a sweet little boy in a buggy. She sat down and opened some sugary drink, then gave the boy a chocolate easter egg. Big smile from him and others on the bus as he showed it around. Positive reinforcement.
How do you deal with this?

I went to a grammar school so no domestic science lessons.
I'm confused. What has going to grammar school got to do with it? . I too went to grammar school, and we had DS lessons throughout, every week from age 11 right up until 16. Only in the 6th form were these lessons dropped. We had extremely thorough cookery tuition, as detailed to some degree in my earlier post - and not at the expense of our academic studies, I might add.

PamelaJI It was but she was rewarded with a Grade 9 - A**.

Oh dear suki, it does sound like a marathon.

Pixie- you asked what people were doing with their time. They are on social media, posting photos of their food.
My DS teacher was obviously right on the button. Danish open sandwiches are on bake off now. I hadn’t thought about them for years.
I think that eating and sharing home cooked food sets the bar at a higher level than most fast food and ready made meals from the supermarket.
If young people get used to eating well then, hopefully, that habit will continue.

Domestic Science is still taught in schools but under another name. Both my DGC had food preparation lessons from Year 7 and this year my DGD took GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition. For the practical exam she cooked vegetable lasagne (she made the pasta too), garlic and mozzarella doughballs, vegetable pie and a swiss roll with passionfruit curd and raspberry coulis, all in 3 hours. Arriving home afterwards she said she was exhausted and was never going to cook again!

I also think that unhealthy, calorific food should have a large tax on it and this should be offset against healthier foods as it’s too easy to fill a young family up on sausage rolls and chips.

There is no such thing as unhealthy foods only unhealthy diets. I used to fill my young family up on sausage roll and chips every Saturday, when between dancing classes, going to the supermarket and visiting an elderly relative, I just didn't have time to cook. The children loved it. Seen over the course of a week, my children (and their parents) had a well balanced and healthy diet.

This is one of the big mistakes so much of food propaganda makes. By demonising some foods it has fuelled the current trend for 'clean' eating, obsessions with avoiding sugar and the eating disorders like orthorexia

My grammar school (girls only) taught cookery and needlework, but as my email shows above the cookery was taught very badly.

Our local high school teaches cookery. They do cookery one term and woodwork or metalwork and sewing the other terms. That was more than I did at school.
In the sixth form we could choose a non exam subject as a light relief from studying for A levels. I chose cooking.

I learned far more from cooking meals at home and from my DH whose DM was a professional cook.

At our community meal today there was a young couple who live in emergency accommodation. They wouldn't touch the vegetables which were delicious.

He even joked that their 2yr old was already pushing greens to the side of the plate.

I worked when my children were at school, when we all got home, homework was done at the kitchen table, whilst I prepared and cooked evening meal, they helped when they had finished homework.

They can all cook, different cuisines/styles.

I remember a lot of what I was taught in Domestic Science at school, how to make sauces, pastry, meal planning and even how to wash up in the correct order (glassware first through to roasting pans)

It's an ideal pixie but I think there needs to be more than that to fight the culture of fast food etc.
We live in one of the 'poorer' areas of the NE and I would guess one shop in 5 is either a coffee shop or a fastfood takeaway. Most of the people out on the street are eating, or drinking some kind of energy drink. Or smoking. They have to have something in their hand to put in their mouth.
Even the 'coffee' shops only sell huge cups of creamy fluid. With a pastry on the side.
I like those tiny cups of strong expresso but no-one sells them.

I went to a grammar school so no domestic science lessons. My mother and grandmother taught me to cook. I taught my daughter. We do not rely on take always.

The only two dishes I really remember were scotch eggs and Danish open sandwiches, neither of which I have ever made again.
But I can still remember the coloured graphs we drew to show the carbohydrates, fats and proteins that were the ‘ideal’. I shudder to this day when DH has chips with his lasagne. He wouldn’t get an A in DS. Neither did I BTW.
I do try and interest DGS but so far he’s made dinosaur biscuits and grated and stirred cheese into macaroni cheese.
No Nigel Slater here!

Local schools have aways had cookery lessons,and every year they take part in a"young cook of the year" with local restaurant owners/chefs and the Rotary Club .
Mine learned to cook from very small so by the time she reached high school my daughter could and did cook a full christmas lunch for the teachers of the Home Economics classes. My GC all cook with me and last year they made lovely 5" christmas cakes as presents for their teachers.Its time to start the fruit cakes for this years .Much nicer than them spending silly money of presents teachers dont want or need ,doesn't everyone like cake?

I learnt how to make Jam etc at school, and never made any of them since. I can cook, have always cooked from scratch even when my kids were pre school and I was working full time it hasn't stopped me being overweight. I also taught my kids to cook and they still do, they too have weight issues at times. Some people may not no how to cook but for the majority it's not rocket science, it's mostly laziness and falling in to bad habits. I too watch eat well for less and I'm gobsmacked at people's ignorance of such simple things. Although to make the savings they claimed you'd spend your life traipsing from store to store so I give all that a miss. I do mainly shop in the same store and pay for the privilege, I like my brands and I'm staying with what I like but their advice makes sense it's just not applicable to me, I've never bought things like grated cheese etc.
As for lessons there have never been so many cooking programs on tv they just don't seem to get through to the majority and change their eating habits so I doubt lessons in school will work. They can find all the help they need on line and cook using an app on their phone. They just have to want to.

My GC have all been encouraged to cook and are reasonably competent. DS2 made perfect shortbread in Y6, and baked some for me at home, also printed out the recipe for me. He's good with pancakes too. DGD made lovely cupcakes to take to Scouts. Unfortunately, when they tried to eat them, it turned out that she had used salt instead of sugar - a mistake she will never make again.

Oh oldbatty that's awful! Everyone in our school had to spend the whole of the autumn term in the lower fourth making a proper, rich fruit Christmas cake from scratch. We first learned how to do all kinds of fancy decorating using a piping bag (which we made ourselves from greaseproof paper), then had to plan how we would decorate our cakes. We made the cake, fed it with brandy every week, then made the marzipan and the next week we put that on the cake. Next was making royal icing, covering the cake - and it had to be absolutely perfect! And then decorating it - again, it had to be perfect.
All the cakes were put on display for parents and visitors and truly they would rival anything a professional baker could do!
Apart from that we learnt everything from meal planning and cooking on a budget to making proper flaky pastry, steak and kidney pudding, Victoria sandwiches, Swiss rolls, egg custards, how to head and tail and gut a herring, then stuff and bake it! And so much more... Consequently cooking has never held any mystery for me.
So can anyone tell me why I quite often sometimes buy ready meals? ???

My experience is similar. All we did was make rock buns to be sold in the school tuck shop during break.

However, DGD started secondary school this term. In her first cookery lesson she made fruit salad, the second week she made bolognaise sauce, followed in another week by fruit crumble. She will no doubt tell me at half term all the other things she has made.

I think it must be quite hard for the teacher. They have children in the same class that like DGD are already competent cooks, because they have been cooking since they were toddlers, to other children who have no experience at all of ever seeing a meal cooked from scratch and have never held or used a sharp knife to prepare food and everything in between.