ONE of the region's schools that is already leading the drive to give pupils healthy food is Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, in Esh Winning, County Durham.

Awarded healthy school status in 2002, children at the school are involved in menu decisions.

Pupils formed a school nutrition action group to encourage other youngsters to eat healthy meals and to swap fizzy drinks and chocolate in their packed lunch boxes for healthy alternatives.

Children already have a say in what food appears on the school dinners menu.

Second-in-charge at the primary school, Pat Seed, said: "The children here have taken things in hand.

"They started with promoting healthy eating in packed lunch boxes and they are working now with the school cook to improve the menu and to help her devise a new menu they think is healthy.

"The children have a lot of involvement, it is they that have to eat the food.

"Because the suggestions are coming from the children, the other children are more open to it.

"Since the School Dinners programme, the pupils have become much more involved and excited about the issue of healthy eating." The pupils are hoping to include more traditional school dinners in the lunchtime menu, such as stews and shepherd's pie.