To agree with the new guidance in Scotland to ban cake at nursery?

It's going to achieve nothing. Children aren't obese because of a weekly slice of cake at nursery. It's an easy win for the Scottish government - they can get seen to be 'tackling obesity'. What are they doing to tackle the parents who feed their children too much crap, or the easy access for teens to a fried chicken shop and a deep fried pizza?

This does seem really sad.

Dd's nursery did cake and a party for all the kids birthdays. Almost invariably a caterpillar cake, and the birthday child got to eat the face 😂. She was so excited when it was her turn 🐛

Oh ice lollies! I assumed lollipops. Ice lollies on hot days are a different matter, nothing wrong with that.

I'd rather they keep the cake and cut out the lollies - lollies are way worse!

There was never any bringing in of cake or sweets to celebrate birthdays at my son's nursery, though one parent did bring in some dried fruit snack bars but that was the only time I've seen that in all the years my son was at nursery, or my daughter before him. But in the summer the nursery takes the children out to forage for blueberries then they all bake blueberry pie together which is really good I think as its educational, social, and reasonably healthy as its full of berries.

FFS really? So they have a slice of cake maybe once a month. Can’t summon up any feelings about that whatsoever, except to say that little kids find it SO exciting to bring their birthday cake in. It’s a shame.

Before everyone has a coronary over lollies they're probably nothing more than some flavoured ice cube type thing with a lolly stick stuck in it. Homemade and perfect for hot days.

When you’ve worked in areas of deprivation where children DON’T have parties and the only celebration is the class singing happy birthday to them, then you might think differently.
Only last year, I had a Year 3 boy whose birthday it was. He has a pretty shitty life, mum receives food parcels from school as she has absolutely no spare money and was upset that she couldn’t afford a cake for him, we provided a cake, we sand to him, he blew out the candles and gave out the cake to his classmates. He thanked everyone for singing to him and was in tears with such joy at the little celebration. Those moments are absolutely priceless.

In reality, at school we would have birthday cake on average less than once every couple of weeks - there are 30 children in a class, some of those children’s birthdays will fall in the holidays, some children won’t bring cake so let’s assume 20 lots of cake over a 39 week school year.
Nurseries have fewer children than that in each room, my grandchildren have 14 in their rooms, so even fewer times birthday cake is brought in.
If you don’t want your Dc to have what would likely be a tiny piece of cake every once in a blue moon, then tell the nursery staff.

Our nursery only allows lemonade iceblocks due to all the different dietary restrictions and kids fighting over colours. It's a killjoy, but admittedly much easier and cheaper for the parents and the kids don't care!

Outrageous

there’s nothing wrong with cake we’ve had cake for 1000’s of years
it lack of exercise and portion control

Is it a dairy or gluten allergy?

I find that places are very often nut-free, but don’t really consider other allergies or intolerances.

I'm horrible and my children haven't even heard of pudding. And yes, I know they'll find out eventually.

I agree with it on the basis that my son has allergies. Not just for him but for the other children who would miss out too.

If I'm hosting anything or going anywhere, I always pack his foods that he can eat. Not all parents do.

Would it be fair to exclude some children due to no fault of their own if the cake wasn't allergy friendly?

I don't think it will impact on childhood obesity at all and just seems a killjoy.

My child's school (england) has preferences for what parents put into lunchboxes and I got a letter once saying piece of fruit for breaktime, no sweets/cake etc... but if children get hot school meals they regularly have cakey things for dessert which makes no sense to me. Better to sort that out than ban birthday cake.

Obesity is surely not caused by a few small pieces of cake at nursery. It’s caused largely by a crap diet at home, and not enough exercise.

Meh! Let them eat cake 🤷‍♂️

It's not like they're making it a staple part of their nursery dinners.

We should remember that most (all?) nurseries have a way to inform the parents of what their child has had that day too. So if birthday cake shows up in the afternoon snack section, can people not just withhold their dessert that night at dinner, or skip the ice cream that weekend? Just make an adaption at home if you’re worried about the cake.

I honestly can’t find the will to get upset over it. If your child is a healthy weight, sees a dentist regularly, is sleeping ok, eats a range of foods and is following the growth curve, you’re fine.

They need to have heathy attitudes to foods and banning anything is wrong, IMO. I just teach my boy that some foods are healthier than others so we eat fruit/veggies lots, but only have a little bit of chocolate/cake.

Agree with this.
Presumably kids in Scotland also have birthday parties, at which there will also be cake, as well as celebrating with their families.
It’s not like these kids are going to be deprived of the experience of ever eating birthday cake.

When DS was at nursery, they had a policy whereby parents were told not to bring in cake for birthdays but, when it was a child’s birthday, they’d all bake a low sugar cake together as an activity. That seemed like a good compromise to me.

I have DC in nursery in Scotland. I think it's ace - the nursery has been following the new guidelines for children's diets and although it was always pretty good, it's now much more varied and the children are being exposed to a wide range of different foods. They do still have cake, actually - ours never allowed cake to be brought in but they do baking as an activity with the children when someone has a birthday. They've just had to change their recipes to reduce sugar and make things like banana bread and scones instead.

A small pice of cake o someone's birthday doesn't cause obesity (plus you can deny permission for your child to have it!)

Obesity is caused by stopping for sweets on the way home daily (I was the odd one when DD2 was at preschool because we only went once a week!), lack of exercise, over large portions etc.

A child having a small piece of cake with their friends at nursery is absolutely fine.

Very odd that you didn't take issue with lollies being given most days at nursery before now though.

Nurseries can continue to allow cake if they want. Mine did a parent engagement thing where everyone agreed that it’s ludicrous and wanted the nursery to continue as normal.

I can’t bring myself to feel strongly about this. We eat healthily at home, the nursery food is great, I can’t get worked up about a tiny slice of Colin after lunch once or twice a month or something. The Scottish Government would be better off tackling the proliferation and advertising of UPFs all over our supermarkets and the terrible home diets of many children.