University of Leeds - Junk reigns in the lunch box

British children eat 5.5 billion packed lunches a year, but research from the University of Leeds shows that only 1 per cent of their lunch boxes are suitably nutritional. The study, commissioned by the Food Standards Agency, found that while 82 per cent of lunch boxes contain crisps, sweets and biscuits, only one in five contains vegetables or salad. About half included an item of fruit. Charlotte Evans, research fellow at the Leeds Institute of Genetics, Health and Therapeutics, which carried out the work, said there was "cause for concern that packed lunches continue to lag behind the nutritional quality of school meals".