Top chef: put cooking on the primary school curriculum to cut obesity

Food preparation and cooking should be included on the primary school curriculum in light of a new study showing growing levels of childhood obesity and ill health, a chef says.

The study, by researchers at University Cork, shows around half of 800 children involved in analysis of salt intake had taken more than the recommended daily amount.

It also found high blood pressure in one in 12 of the primary school children involved in the study, which included children from 27 schools in Cork and Mitchelstown. One quarter of the children were either overweight or obese.