PUPILS in Hathershaw were always ahead of the game when it came to hi-tech solutions to getting healthy.

They didn't need a celebrity chef to tell them to change their ways, because this week in 1982 forward-thinking Hathershaw Comprehensive installed a computer in the canteen to analyse students' lunch choices and dish out advice about what they should be eating.

The combination of science and good health was obviously inspirational, because in 2005 the school was renamed Hathershaw College of Sport and Technology - the first dual specialism school in England.

The 1982 computer cost a hefty £2,000, but was somewhat primitive by today's standards.

That was the year the Commodore 64 was launched, but an average web page today contains more information than that machine's entire memory bank could handle.

The code to run the healthy advice programme had to be written from scratch by teachers.

According to our story: "One in eight pupils in the canteen are asked to go to the computer where an operator feeds in their age, sex and details of the meal they have chosen.

"The computer then gives a print-out of calories, vitamins and protein content, and adds a comment which ranges from 'well done - a good choice' to 'this will make you fat'."

The report was printed out on a noisy dot matrix printer - now an obsolete curio. But now computers at the college are more state of the art than state of the ark.

Today there are more than 1,000 computers, each with many times more processing power, and sporty students are much more clued up about which foods are the healthiest.

The college has been given a Healthy Schools Award and pupils have been involved in developing the menus in the canteen.

And pupils need to eat well to keep up their energy when they enjoy the plentiful sports facilities they now have, and they are pushing technology forward too.

IT manager Colin Myott said: "We are hoping to invest in a new computer linked to a video camera, which can film people practicing their sport, like long jump or tennis, and give them tips on how to improve their technique.

"I don't know what happened to the machine from 1982, it's probably in a skip somewhere!"

In 2004 the school received over £1 million in lottery funding to improve its sports facilities, and in 2005 it opened a new £350,000 netball complex.

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