To think it’s a bit unreasonable that children have to have fruit for school snack.

@Nosleepforthismum my DDs are the same. Snacks in this house are fruit, cheese or oatcakes. If they are genuinely hungry they will happily eat one of those items but often they're asking for snacks because they're bored or they want junk.

I do think children's diets in this country are so messed up and we're not doing them any favours. Even OP's example of malt loaf.... there is zero difference between that and giving your child a slice of cake for a snack. It's still full of sugar and the dried fruit isn't great for your teeth anyway. No child will starve if given a decent, filling breakfast, a piece of fruit as a snack which at least is natural and not UPF and then lunch. As a PP's example showed.....the children of France are not starving because they have to wait until lunchtime to eat something.

The problem is that countless children in this country will be eating some crappy, refined cereal with added sugar for breakfast. No wonder it doesn't fill them up.

That sounds like a tactic to get someone with an ED to eat in a healthier way, blood sugar should not be dipping after 2 hours.

How old are you because I'm 60 and we had morning tuck shop at our village primary back in the days where 5p would get you 2 bags of crisps.

I am 40 and all we ever had mid-morning was an apple. Malt loaf is basically cake! As a university rower we ate it after long distance races. A child doesn't need a high sugar snack after two hours at school when they've got lunch coming.

Give her two pieces of fruit?!

To everyone thinking it's ott giving kids snacks often they obviously don't have kids with anorexia or autism with severe food issues. My son is like a skeleton despite me constantly giving him snacks and trying to get him to eat. If his school added restrictions I'd have to remove him. Also my daughter has to be made to eat snacks as she would happily starve herself. The eating disorder service drum into her that there are no bad foods, just foods that are not as healthy as others but she should still have " treat" foods every day

Snacks is such a modern concept. Kids really don't need snacks at all. Break used to be just running around and grabbing your warm bottle of milk....Yum.

Having said that if snacks are allowed, just fruit is very restrictive. At least allow bread sticks or rice cakes etc

We called it "lunch". The utterly disgusting meal served at noon was "dinner", I remember being given 2 plain biscuits wrapped in greaseproof paper. Other children had crisps and sweets of which I was jealous. This was around 1970.

If this was my kids school I'd remove them!

My daughters eating disorder therapist said you need a snack after 2 hours to keep your blood sugar levels from dropping too much

Is that a medical doctor? Because honestly a child's blood sugar levels shouldn't drop to unhealthy levels that fast if you are eating properly. My daughter's under an endocrinologist for a growth related condition and we've never been told to have snacks constantly.

I went to school in the 1970s/1980s there was always a school tuck shop where we could buy chocolate, crisps, sweets, basically junk.

How old are you because I'm 60 and we had morning tuck shop at our village primary back in the days where 5p would get you 2 bags of crisps.

For those of us with less supermarkets around us, we're paying a lot more than that.

That’s wrong. Your blood sugar should stay stable if you’re healthy.

Yeah she won’t starve. It is the bane of my life having my kids (4&2) constantly ask for snacks. They don’t mean a healthy snack - they mean they want to eat junk. Whenever I enforce a “help yourself to the fruit bowl if you are hungry” they seem to miraculously be cured of starvation until lunchtime.

Most british children are fat or heading that way. They don't need sugary calorific malt loaf. If she's having a good breakfast she should be able to last until lunch, in primary schools lunch tends to be barely noon.

We have this obsession with never feeling hungry! Children should feel hungry by lunchtime. We eat too much

My daughters eating disorder therapist said you need a snack after 2 hours to keep your blood sugar levels from dropping too much

Right.

This idea that the mid-morning snack, aka elevenses, is a modern invention of the last 15 years or whatever is an obvious nonsense.

This is what they are trying to encourage enforce over here but we are just too different in our approach to child rearing and everything else, especially diet.

I sort of agree with this, it is fine for children to not feel full all the time..

A bannana at break to keep her going till lunch is fine,

The obsession with snacks is insane. If she's "starving" three hours after breakfast then your breakfast is crap, there's something wrong with her, or you're exaggerating.

Mine are in reception, so they get access to free fruit all day.

I think it’s fair that your child isn’t allowed to bring cake into school. Wouldn’t it be better to give her more for breakfast (often mine have two breakfasts)?

I went to school in the 80s and crisps were a common morning snack. I remember the gulls descending on the playground as soon as the whistle blew to signal end of break to pick up what had been dropped. We were rural so breakfast at 7 or earlier was the norm - we left to catch the school bus at 7.45, so I think 5 hours is quite a stretch until lunch. I'm mid forties now and still have a mid morning snack.

Where on earth are you that 1 biscuit costs more than an apple. You can buy a whole packet of plain biscuits for about 60p, whereas 1 single apple costs at least about 40p.

A pack of biscuits contains at least about 20 - 25 biscuits, they cost justca few pennies each.

DDs are 8 and 6 and our school has the same rule (fruit or vegetables only.) DD2 is a hungrier child than DD1 and would eat me out of house and home if I let her. A piece of fruit is still a perfectly acceptable snack for her to have in the few hours between breakfast and lunch. They won't starve and it's easy to enforce for the school.

I do think kids eat far too much these days and it's like there is a fear of them feeling hungry. Hunger is totally normal in advance of a meal. Constant snacking (and malt loaf is full of sugar too) is really not a great habit. My friend says she worries about her DDs weight....and she is overweight but then is standing in the playground with a packet of mini cheddars or whatever to give to her the moment she comes out of school because presumably she'll faint if she has to wait until she gets home to eat.

Give your DD a big bowl of porridge for breakfast or some scrambled eggs on toast and then a banana or an apple for morning snack and she will be absolutely fine and won't waste away having to wait for her lunch.

At my DDs old boarding school they were offered fruit and a biscuit for a snack. Most are both I understand. Fruit doesn’t fill you up much - a banana would, but an apple doesn’t. Active dc need a bit more.