Why do some schools still not have a healthy eating lunchbox?

[nickiredcar]

I'm shocked at what some people like this YouTuber gives her kids for lunch - sausage role, crisps, ice gems, junky breakfast bar, packet of grapes and a caprison.

I'm shocked that there are still schools where this passes as an acceptable lunch. In mine one of those junk foods would be allowed in on Fridays but 80-90% is banned.

There are lots of issues I've had with school. Most of them are due to policies or individuals. Like the rest of society some staff are brilliant, some okay and some piss poor. However I'm sick of the nanny state and blame culture. A nutritionally less than ideal lunch needs to be looked at in the context of The bigger picture and against deprivation. I would hope a school would notice if a child was not being fed or had red bull and a tube of Pringles for lunch, but a sausage roll and a Capri Sun, meh. Just because they don't have organic hummus served with home grown crudities and water drawn from a private spring doesn't mean that the child isn't loved, cared for and supported.

I live in a country where there are no free school dinners (in fact no school dinners at all, just lunchboxes) so if a family can't afford to feed their child they get no lunch. A lot of teachers working in more deprived areas choose to take at least a loaf of bread in a day to feed these children in their class.

There was a programme a while back where they went into classrooms in different areas to see what lunches they had. In richer areas there were lots of healthy lunches, although kids still take in crisps, bars etc - no lunch box police here. In deprived areas, many had no lunch at all, but those who did mainly had something unhealthy like a bag of crisps (and often nothing else). I think most people here would be more concerned about children actually having food rather than the contents.

Thankfully the school mine go to realise that their lunch is just one meal and therefore it should be up to parents to police it.

Some days my DS has a big lunchbox - if he hasn't been hungry at breakfast, if he's going through a growth spurt, on the days he's had swimming the night before he's always ravenous etc. On other days he has very little. School only get a snapshot of what a child eats and therefore they absolutely shouldn't be the ones dictating it.

The other thing to remember is that for some people it is hard to access fresh fruit and vegetables without a car to get them to the supermarket. It’s easier to get crisps etc from the corner shop.

I detest the idea of the lunch box police. DD has school dinners but even if she didn’t apart from no nuts her school doesn’t have a policy for lunch boxes, they leave it up to the parents, as it should be. Quite frankly unless it was part of a pattern of neglect which would warrant a safeguarding referral they can mind their own bloody business!

Your body will take whatever it needs, from whatever it gets. Everything else is waffle. 5 a day, vegan, vegetarian, red meat eater, fish etc.; imagine a desert island, situation; protein is enough to fuel anyone, fat is a good reserve to have; carbs are like when you put fuel into a car. If u are pure vegan then you had better. know what you will be eating.

When schools do police lunch boxes they get critisied. There has been threads on here of i sent my child with a one off tread it was sent home with a note in the lunch box. I will feed my child what i like. In extreme examples theres even "sad face" articles spread all over national newspapers go and good school packed lunches in places like the sun and the daily mail op, and look at the comments most parents are agravated by the policing of lunch boxes and think schools have better things to do with their time.

When they don't police lunch boxes, op writes this thread. With actually very little arguement other than how horrified she is and what about the NHS. Diet is a small part of a healthy life style op, and actually teavhing our children hang ups about food is not a brilliant idea. Everything in moderation, a suitable calorie intake exercise, no smoking and limited (obviously at that age NO) alcohol intake, is a better lifestyle than teaching children that food some how bad.

You wants to point the finger at school dinners before you look at lunch boxes and this agravates parents even more that packed lunches often have such a strict healthy eating policy while the school provided meals are pizza and sponge cake.

Because parents have so little money it is completely inappropriate for a school to dictate to them like that. At my school if a child has an insufficient packed lunch (eg just a bag of crisps) we give them a free school meal and let parents know afterwards. So many of our children live in poor conditions with hectic home lives, if their lunch contains some iced gems it’s really not the biggest problem for teachers to worry about.

Here you go OP, www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/school-sent-lunch-box-back-15171438

3 chocolate biscuits being sent home cos the lunch box is "too unhealthy" 3 mini biscuits is going to cripple the NHS is it?? Not likely, nor is a packet of crisps and couple packets of ice gems a week.

You're going to be horrified by some of these examples but when a child comes to school with a pork pie and a can of shandy because its "all they have in the fridge" i think the school has bigger problems to deal with than "healthy eating policies" even the happy meal it might have been ashame to waste it also pregaps what the gran meant was i spent my last £5 on it last night and i dont have any more money to pack another lunch today

www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/family-kids-news/schoolboy-can-shandy-pork-pie-15157962

Our school has the healthy lunchbox scheme but its not policed. We live in a deprived area and i know some kids make their own lunchbox or an older sibling do them. We’re just thankful they eat. Whatever it is.

To OP,

I’m the one who made that video that you delightfully shared & judged. You’ve judged without knowing any facts.

My Son has Autism, ADHD as well as learning disabilities, one being Sensory Processing Disorder as well as him being a fussy eater.

He does get his nutrients. He’s weight is exactly where it should be & he is completely healthy.

Like most have said on this thread they’d rather a child eat than not eat. Same goes for my Son, I’d rather him eat than not eat or giving him stuff that will cause him to have a sensory overload.

He attends a specialist educational school and lots have the same diagnosis & they all have similar lunches.

Please think next time that there may be a reason for it.

Also a big thank you to everyone else on here for your input, it’s very much appreciated.

After all, no one is perfect.

Save your tears for the kids who don't get lunch at all. Or the ones who's parents are so obsessed with good foods & bad food that they give their kids ED.

I'm lucky my DC are fairly unfussy eaters who love veg, but their lunch is my business, not yours or schools.

Michellica

I was terribly conscientious about this sort of thing. Fruit, breadsticks, carrot sticks. And it all came back untouched. Head, bang, wall. (That's when they didn't tip it into the bin on the way home.) There really is only so much the schools can do.

I don’t actually have a problem with schools policing lunchboxes because some people are idiots and I don’t want kids to suffer as a result.
But how in gods name are they supposed to be managing this?! They are skint, generally understaffed and have a billion other things to focus on!

And then there is, of course, the problem of fussy eaters.
It’s just occurred to me the I ate fuck all for the first few years of primary school.

My son has a ‘junky breakfast bar’ most mornings because we have an hour commute and he’s never hungry first thing.

He’s a picky —bastard— eater so I send him with cocktail sausages, fruit, baked crisps, maybe some veg and a sugar free ribena most days because I would rather he actually eat that than look indignantly at a Jamie Oliver approved lunch and leave it.

He also usually has a healthy tea.

It’s swings and roundabouts and 99% of parents are doing the best they can with their kids, not all will eat a 100% healthy lunch each day and surely it’s better that they eat something junky than not at all.

michellia not everyone is a judgemental pain. Your son's lunch box is barely going to cause the crisis OP says so dont worry and you dont have to defend yourself.

Oh dear op when you judge some one and they get told about your nasty post

So badly filmed....

Pasta isn't any better. That lunch is ok though. Some kids chuck the food their Mums make in the bin if they don't like it or bring it home.

Honestly I think that it's more important that they have something they'll eat
My kids love fruit, but that's where the healthy eating ends.
I opt for school dinners/ those provided by nursery etc. Because they are more likely to eat food their peers are eating, but at home honestly I'm lucky to get two healthy meals in a week (eg. One dinner, one breakfast, or whatever)
They will survive the bread products and the freezer food and the endless rounds of white toast and cereal and buckets of fromage frais they eat, they will not survive being hungry

I used to obsess and worry over their eating but now I try and relax. There are plenty of more important things to worry about, and if they are clean, fed, cared for who gives a flying F if they eat Nutella sandwiches for lunch every day

I used to have healthy lunches but I didn't eat them because I didn't like them. I think that's a worse habit to Get into than eating a sausage roll and a kit kat for lunch...

Epic fail for me then, I sometimes pop a sausage roll in and crisps, other days veg sticks and hummous for DD, sometimes DS doesn't get any fruit/veg in his lunch box because he will not eat it however both mine at home eat plenty of veg which makes up majority of their 5 a day. We don't have any processed food at home, I cook from scratch for dinner, they normally have eggs for breakfast, boiled or scrambled, sometimes porridge, wholemeal bread etc. What's the point in the lunch box police when they don't know what is going on at home?

Nothing wrong with a sausage roll. Can't remember when I last had one but I like them hot.

You can't expect school stuff to police lunch boxes. Honestly! The important thing is that kids eat something at lunch time and have a decent meal in the evening.

It is the parents' responsibility to provide a healthy packed lunch. Schools have got enough to do. I know children can be fussy, but if you don't get them used to eating junk in the first place, they won't refuse to eat proper food. Nothing wrong with the odd biscuit or packet of crisps, but a whole lunch box full of processed crap every day is appalling.

Wait till they get to secondary school , most secondary age kids seem to pick up a Ginster’s pasty on the way to school. My teenage DS manages to get meal deals from KFC or the local chip shop most days.

Why do some people think it's a concern of theirs what's in someone else's lunch box?
Why do some people think the school should have any say on the matter?
Why don't some people keep themselves to themselves?
Why should a school be responsible for peoples diet?