TV chef Prue Leith has warned that unless schools teach children how to cook, the obesity problem will never be solved.

The 78-year-old, who is a co-judge on Channel 4 show The Great British Bake Off, said children needed to be taught in schools how to cook, love healthy food and follow a good diet.

“I have shouted in the ears of almost every politician I have met,” she said.

“I think the message has got across but what has not got across unfortunately is the practice, and the practice needs money.

“If you take school meals, it is very difficult to get schools and the government to understand the secret of school meals, which is to teach children to like food, to like a good diet, to like healthy food.

“In order to do that, it is best to do that via cooking and to do that you need the equipment and the teachers.”

‘Not enough schools teach cooking’

While the national curriculum requires children up to the age of 14 to be taught cooking, Ms Leith claimed that “only 40 per cent of schools do it”.

“I attack the government because I think it is so short-sighted not to realise that if you don’t teach children to eat properly, you will never, ever crack the obesity problem,” she said.

“You will go on having to pay increasing amounts of money for the NHS.

“It is true people are living longer, but they are living longer unhealthily and increasingly obese.

“This is me on my real soapbox. Did you know the fastest increasing medical operation in this country is amputations and that is because of diabetes - a problem of diet?

“It’s a circular thing but it is so obvious what needs doing.”

Leith, who was speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, said she thought there were “glimmers of hope” but said no education secretary ever stayed in the job long enough to make a difference.

“At one stage Ed Balls had agreed free school meals for all primary school pupils and at that point Labour got kicked out of office,” she said.

“Michael Gove got on with (cookery writer) Henry Dimbleby and saw what he was trying to do, and then he was no longer education secretary.

“What is very frustrating is that ministers love announcing new initiatives. What they don’t like doing is getting behind the same initiatives, sticking to it and doing it until it is right across the system.”