ONE OF the world’s leading authorities on obesity has called on councils to ban burger vans from parking outside school gates.

Professor Philip James, chairman of the International Obesity Task Force, a think tank that works closely with the World Health Organisation, said healthy meal initiatives were being undermined by snack vans selling fatty foods and sugary drinks near schools.

The issue of school meals shot to the top of the political agenda ahead of last year’s general election when it was highlighted by Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef. Since then fat-filled burgers, Turkey Twizzlers — high-fat nuggets of reconstituted meat — and fizzy drinks have been removed from school menus under guidelines from the Department for Education and Skills.

The first episode in a new series of Channel 4’s Jamie’s School Dinners, screened a fortnight ago, saw Oliver extract a commitment from Tony Blair to provide an extra £240m to improve school canteens.

James is one of a number of nutritionists who fear that the policy is being compromised by independent traders operating close to schools. It is estimated that more than 2m children use their dinner money to buy junk food.

Local authorities are blamed for granting street trader licences to snack vans within easy walking distance of schools, and many directly in front of school gates.

“It is obvious that the best way to improve the appalling diets of children in the UK is not only to implement sound nutritional standards within schools, but to ensure that children don’t just go outside the gates to buy junk food,” said James.

“Schools have a duty to protect children and there is an urgent need for action to improve children’s diets. We need to be tough if we are going to give our children the chance of beating the obesity epidemic and avoiding the increasing risks of diabetes and heart disease, which are already at crisis point.”

An estimate by the Department of Health forecasts that 1.7m British children will be obese by 2010, including toddlers. According to the study, 22% of girls and 19% of boys aged between two and 15 will be chronically obese. Junk food, high in fat and sugar, is being blamed for the trend, which is being compounded by children’s increasingly sedentary lifestyle.

Over the past five years there has also been a tenfold rise among children of cases of type 2 diabetes, a condition traditionally associated with overweight adults. In the year 2004-05 there were 100 new cases among under-16s.

Parents have also been accused of sabotaging the healthy eating initiative. Earlier this month two mothers from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, started a fast-food delivery service for schoolchildren because they said pupils did not want to eat the “overpriced, low-fat rubbish” being served to them as a result of Oliver’s healthy eating campaign.

Meanwhile, one of Britain’s leading economists has warned that Scotland’s level of spending on health is unsustainable.

Andrew Dilnot, principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and a former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has warned that the Scottish executive will have to raise taxes or cut services within the next five years.

Influential Labour and Nationalist MSPs have been backing Dilnot’s call for a debate on the issue. Health spending in Scotland has almost doubled in the past seven years to more than £7 billion.

“The way we have paid for the spending increases in the past five years have been through increasing borrowing,” said Dilnot. “The problem is that we can’t increase borrowing any more as Gordon Brown has reached his limit.

“People are staying alive for longer. This, coupled with demographic changes, means that the pressure to increase spending at the kinds of rates we have over the past few years will still be there.”

By 2031 it is estimated that more than 1.3 million people, or 26% of the Scottish population, will be aged 65 and over.

To meet increased demands, Dilnot says Scotland’s politicians will be forced to think the unthinkable. “It would be possible for the Scottish parliament to use its tax-raising powers to fund more spending. It would take enormous political courage, but the results could be dramatic,” he said.

“Political opinion in Scotland is significantly further to the left than it is south of the border and I suspect a majority would be in favour of paying more taxes to fund and maintain a universal National Health Service.”

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