Cuts to school meal budgets and a u-turn on cooking skills in schools could have a dramatic effect on childhood obesity, according to experts.

New evidence commissioned by a leading partnership of food charities shows that a whole school approach to food that links practical food education with quality school dinners leads to a better family diet and can improve academic performance and behaviour.

The Food for Life Partnership (FFLP) project was set up to encourage pupils and their parents to eat healthy food and learn how to cook it and grow it themselves. It also reconnects families with farms and the dilemmas of modern food production.

An independent evaluation of its work, by a team from the University of the West of England (UWE) and Cardiff University, provides hard evidence that schools were rated more highly by inspectors after taking part in the FFLP programme. It also showed that pupils' interest in healthy and sustainable foods was having a "nudge effect" on their eating habits and their parents' shopping habits.

The UWE evaluation of the FFLP project found more than twice as many FFLP primary schools received an Ofsted rating of outstanding following their participation, there was an increase in the proportion of primary school-age children reporting eating five portions of fruit or vegetables a day and over a two-year period, free school meal take-up went up 13 percentage points in FFLP schools.

Libby Grundy, director of the FFLP, said: "The UK has the highest rate of childhood obesity in Europe, with almost a quarter of adults and about one in ten children classed as obese and a further 20-25 per cent of children overweight. The UWE evidence shows that our programme has made a positive difference to improving diet and this in turn is having a knock-on effect on behaviour and attainment. Yet, just as the programme looks as if it has reached the tipping point in terms of making a cultural shift, cuts to local authority school meal budgets - and an uncertain funding future for the FFLP programme itself - could undo all the good work."