POOR fat children should be taught how to ‘grow a carrot’ to help them learn about healthy eating, the shadow foreign secretary has suggested.

Youngsters from struggling families are overweight because they learn bad eating habits, according to Emily Thornberry.

Labour’s plans to give all primary school pupils free meals at lunchtime would improve knowledge about what to eat, she said.

Miss Thornberry told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “I believe that education should be universal, that all children should go to state schools and part of that education should be having a lunch and part of that is being taught about healthy eating.

“If you look at poor children now, they are not thin, they are overweight. That is because of poor eating because of bad eating habits.

“Part of your education ought to be teaching you about, you know, how you can grow a carrot.”

Labour wants to pay for the £1billion policy through VAT on private school fees.

All state-educated pupils in the first three years of primary school already receive free meals.

But only older children from the poorest families qualify as they progress through the system.