Hot meals could soon be back on the menu for thousands of schoolchildren following a damning health report.

West Sussex County Council, which runs education services, said it was considering the reintroduction of hot food by 2008.

But a leading county councillor ruled out meals being cooked in new kitchens at individual schools.

Instead, they might be prepared at one location and ferried to schools, where they would be reheated.

A county council spokeswoman said: "We are looking at all options but it is a bit tricky to know what is going to happen."

East Sussex still provides hot school meals but West Sussex scrapped them six years ago to save £500,000 a year, sparking an outcry from parents.

They were replaced by free lunchbox meals for some children, distributed by council contractors Sodexho.

But most children have since taken in their own cold packed lunches, fuelling fears that youngsters were eating too much junk food.

The Government last week announced at the Labour Party conference in Brighton that it planned to improve children's diets following condemnation of poor quality school meals by TV celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

The county's existing school meal contracts expired on July 31, 2006, and councillors will be asked between October and January to procure a replacement service.

A report to councillors said: "The new contracts will take account of the Government guidance with regard to the reintroduction of a hot meal service in all schools and a nutritionally balanced meal by 2008."

Up to 18 secondary schools and 249 primary schools would be covered by the new contract.

Coun Steven Waight, a county council cabinet member, said he did not envisage a return to the days when hot food was cooked in each school.

Most schools had scrapped their kitchens and now used the space for teaching services.

He said meals might be prepared at one location and then transported to individual schools to be heated up.

This operation would require funding from central Government as there was no money in the county's budget to implement such a scheme.

CounWaight believed each school should ultimately have the freedom to choose whether it wanted to reintroduce hot food for its students.

A Department of Education spokesman: "We have said we shall bring in nutritional guidance by next year. We want to see hot meals provided in all schools."

Earlier this year a county council report revealed one in three West Sussex schoolchildren aged between 11 and 13 was overweight.

Most children had chocolate bars and crisps, both high in fat and salt, in lunchboxes prepared by parents at home.

Only four per cent of pupils were taking in sandwiches made of wholemeal, granary or brown bread, while just 50 per cent of lunchboxes contained fruit.

The startling statistics were revealed in a report for the county's Health Scrutiny Select Committee.

The report, compiled by the countys Childhood Obesity Taskforce, also showed that almost seven per cent of children were regarded as obese.

Dr James Walsh, chairman of the taskforce, called for the restoration of hot school meals which provided balanced nutrition.

He said: "In my view it was a mistake to scrap school meals."

University College, Chichester, undertook a study of 765 children aged between 11 and 13 in four unnamed West Sussex schools.

The study revealed that 31 per cent were overweight and 6.5 per cent were obese. It also showed that 21 per cent of youngsters were not eating fruit and vegetables regularly and 19 per cent were not playing sport regularly.