Jam sandwiches at wraparound care

🙄

Yet bread is an absolute staple of children's diets in the uk and the amount of jam they will be given is absolutely negligible.

White bread in the UK is full of UPFs. Jam, particularly and especially store bought one is full of sugar and has almost no fruits so 0 nutritional value. It’s essentially a sugar bomb - horrible for the teeth, horrible for the gut. Read up on it.

Then pay more for wrap around clubs or get your kids collected by a nursery after school.

For a bit of balance, the child nutritionist and author of a range of books that many use for weaning etc, Charlotte Stirling Reed, has also recently posted about this, in the context of chocolate spread. I don’t think questioning the offer is vastly unreasonable when the school is quite clear I wouldn’t be allowed to provide the EXACT SAME THING if it came from
home.

White bread in the UK is full of UPFs. Jam, particularly and especially store bought one is full of sugar and has almost no fruits so 0 nutritional value. It’s essentially a sugar bomb - horrible for the teeth, horrible for the gut. Read up on it.

My reception age DD goes to a really well arranged breakfast club and after school club 4 days a week. It works very well with 2 commuting parents. I only have one gripe and that is with the food they offer. Technically the food should align with the school’s healthy eating policy, as it’s run by the school not an external provider. The school has asked parents not to provide sweet treats in lunch boxes and it’s quite strict about sandwiches.

HOWEVER the school is not transparent about the wraparound food offer and I had to email three times to get them to tell me what they provide. Once they did, they disclosed that the after school options include a range of sandwiches, including jam, plus a pudding of cake and fruit. Of course, my four-year-old always goes for a jam sandwich and ends up with a very sweet tea 4 days a week. The school says they offer carrot sticks etc, however, not one single parent has ever mentioned this in conversation and so I just think it’s something they say but don’t provide.

We do talk at home about the importance of a balanced diet, but she’s still only four and temptation is there! She’s offered something a bit more nutritionally balanced she gets home, but she’s usually just full of jam sandwich!

I emailed the school to ask them if they are able to comment on this or if they ever review the food that they provide at wraparound care, but I haven’t received a reply. AIBU to push this further?

What on earth do you think is wrong with bread, butter and jam for a snack in the context of an otherwise healthy diet?

I completely agree with you. Basically your child is having a sugar sandwich. Appalling for teeth, for establishing eating patterns and for preventing obesity.
The parents getting angry with you indicated to me just how we have so many eating related issues. All of these people will say that their children’s teeth are fine, they are not obese, they eat healthily the rest of the time etc but these bad habits are set in childhood. Large studies sho that we have the highest ever issues in the uk and are beginning to be worse than the US.Look at the number of women who think obesity is fine because the”average”uk dress size has risen to a size 14 to 16.
Giving a child toast and hummus for eg is no more expensive than jam. When my kids were at school it would be veg with dips, piece of fruit and cheese, toast with hummus or cottage cheese,sandwich with cucumber, plain popcorn. That type of stuff. We had the battle then with parents who wanted cake, jam sandwich and crisps insisting it was cheaper, it is not! I have just done some quick checks on wholesale prices and stand by this being the same now.

I completely agree with you. Basically your child is having a sugar sandwich. Appalling for teeth, for establishing eating patterns and for preventing obesity.
The parents getting angry with you indicated to me just how we have so many eating related issues. All of these people will say that their children’s teeth are fine, they are not obese, they eat healthily the rest of the time etc but these bad habits are set in childhood. Large studies sho that we have the highest ever issues in the uk and are beginning to be worse than the US.Look at the number of women who think obesity is fine because the”average”uk dress size has risen to a size 14 to 16.
Giving a child toast and hummus for eg is no more expensive than jam. When my kids were at school it would be veg with dips, piece of fruit and cheese, toast with hummus or cottage cheese,sandwich with cucumber, plain popcorn. That type of stuff. We had the battle then with parents who wanted cake, jam sandwich and crisps insisting it was cheaper, it is not! I have just done some quick checks on wholesale prices and stand by this being the same now.

That should be a snack. You should be cooking her a healthy dinner for when she returns home.

The amount of people thinking a jam sandwich 4 days a week is a “perfectly okay” food for a 4yo child, be it a snack or tea, is crazy. No wonder the UK has a childhood obesity epidemic.

And comparing a cheese sandwich to being the same as a jam sandwich is just mind boggling. One has 0 nutritional value and is objectively bad for teeth, the other at least has protein in it and is not sugary.

The amount of people thinking a jam sandwich 4 days a week is a “perfectly okay” food for a 4yo child, be it a snack or tea, is crazy. No wonder the UK has a childhood obesity epidemic.

And comparing a cheese sandwich to being the same as a jam sandwich is just mind boggling. One has 0 nutritional value and is objectively bad for teeth, the other at least has protein in it and is not sugary.

Why is a jam sandwich as a snack not acceptable? I still love a jam sandwich now and then as an adult and it is a staple snack in many houses.

There are far worse things to offer a child than a jam sandwich.

Except she’s full from all the jam!
Those talking about what she will eat later in her school life, is not really my issue now. She is 4 and setting the foundations for healthy eating in later life. I did not eat badly at secondary school and we are very consciously educating about real food and do not eat UPF at home, so are willing to bend on this for ease of school.

We talk about eating all sorts of foods, we try things that are new, we make sure we put a bit of everything on our plate. It’s very simple and not rigid at all. She doesn’t know it’s ‘a balanced diet’.

Except she’s full from all the jam!
Those talking about what she will eat later in her school life, is not really my issue now. She is 4 and setting the foundations for healthy eating in later life. I did not eat badly at secondary school and we are very consciously educating about real food and do not eat UPF at home, so are willing to bend on this for ease of school.