Junk food mum 'right all along'!

A MUM who sparked national outrage a year ago by delivering junk food to South Yorkshire schoolchildren today insisted she had been right all along.

Julie Critchlow handed burgers, fish and chips, fizzy pop and butties through the school gates to pupils at Rawmarsh Comprehensive at lunchtime.

Hungry kids were demanding familiar fast foods instead of new-look healthy salads, pasta and veg on offer in the wake of TV chef Jamie Oliver's school dinners campaign.

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A year on, as thousands of kids across the nation are reported to be shunning healthy options and opting out of school dinners altogether, Julie is adamant she has been proved right.

The defiant 44-year-old told The Star: "They should have listened to me!"

Julie, of Monkwood Road, Rawmarsh, maintained: "Since this all blew up last year I kept my two kids, Steven and Rachel, out of school at lunchtimes and they enjoyed what they wanted to eat.

"Many children at the school, like elsewhere, do not like to be force-fed healthy food and many are not eating at all during the day at school.

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"Some are buying a sandwich on their way to school and then not eating until they get home at night. Is that healthy?"

Julie, who was joined by fellow mum Sam Walker, 42, in handing the fast-food lunches through the school fence, said: "I received a lot of hate-mail for what happened and it wasn't very pleasant at all.

"We got wrongly labelled 'the junk food mums' but it wasn't all burgers and chips we were taking for the children."