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The library, which has been funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is a catalogue of all the key initiatives aimed at improving children’s nutrition since 1879. In the late 1940s, both free school meals and school milk were made available to all schoolchildren. 

The resource provides a stark record of how Britain’s current generation of older adults benefitted from an ‘unprecedented’ wartime and post-war drive to improve childhood nutrition regardless of social class and income. 

Anna Taylor executive director of The Food Foundation said: “This new library shows the evolution of children's food policies and casts new light on today’s policy decisions. For example, it shows that free school meals were first introduced when we realised that poor nutrition in childhood meant that our soldiers didn't have the physical strength to fight in the Boer war.  

“It shows that in 1949 and in 1986 free school meals were cut back so that many of today's older adults who benefited from free school meals as children would no longer be eligible now. Poor nutrition in childhood has once again become a national priority - with unhealthy weight and poor diets affecting more than one in three 11-year-olds.  

“It's time to re-think whether we have the right policies in place and urgently extend free school meals to prevent the long-term impact of the cost-of-living crisis on children's health.”