No it's not any single government's fault more a succession of policy decisions and societal changes that have led us to where we are today. Whether or not it's the governments fault or not I take an interventionist view that says if government can help it should especially for the kids whose parents are either unwilling and/or unable to help their kids because it helps break the generational groundhog day cycle that exists for some families, which ultimately benefits us all. Food tech in schools I really like but at my own kids school the parents have to provide the ingredients etc so you're possibly not getting to children who might need it most; if schools were in a position to provide cheapish but nutritious ingredients to all children to develop skills it would be costly but what might the longer term benefits be? It's like Sure Start centres, spend the money early in the child's life and it'll reap rewards.
Sort of related there's loads of fascinating research done on the impact of nutrition on mental health particularly around depression and anxiety, it's a bit chicken and egg but crap diet and poor mental health often go hand in hand. I read about one trial which was about introducing vegetables into the diet of people who had poor diets and poor mental health, they paid for people's vegetables for a period of time and taught them how to use them in a variety of different ways. The impact in improved wellbeing and health wasn't just statistically significant it was huge (it's obviously not just the food it's the therapeutic value of the process etc but the nutrition itself significantly impacts the hippocampus etc). What was really interesting to me was it wasn't expensive stuff either, I think the research budget only supported supply of the very cheapest frozen mixed veg and yet that on it's own had a really positive impact. Think it's this lot
http://www.isnpr.org Ditch the politics and the whole debate about the deserving vs undeserving poor etc and follow the science.