Opinions on schools dictating what kids can eat at snack...

[sendwineandastraw]

I’ve just made up my Y6 DD’s pack lunch and she mentioned that she was told off yesterday for bringing in and eating a Beetroot and Berry Soreen bar at break time, apparently she should be making better and healthier snack choices!

Dont get me wrong I’m under no illusions that’s it’s not exactly the same nutritional value as carrot sticks or an apple but a quick google tells me a Soreen lunch bar contains 32% less sugar than an average snack bar and 50% than the average cake bar...

Yesterday DD took with her water, yogurt, blueberries, sushi (Aldi’s finest lunch pack!!) and the above Soreen so She’s hardly living a life of Smartie sandwich’s and Irn Bru!!!...

I don’t like being dictated to at the best of time what’s right for my kids but DD’s school is very sporty and before break have already done their daily mile and swam for an hour, how is a satsuma going to sustain and keep kids focused until lunch?!

Did it change anything? On the whole they're following DfE/LA advice.

I tried when DSs' school banned cake but allowed cereal bars. So a processed sugar laden cereal bar was OK but homemade banana loaf wasn't. They'd didn't budge though.

@Catskidsandcoffee
😂😂 um, what?!? Do you roast and cool with it?!? You can do other stuff whilst it's doing that, just so you're aware. You can also have other stuff cooking at the same time. Buying, portioning, freezing, defrosting all things you would equally have to do if you bought processed. Basting and deboning, yes, hence the 1 minute.

I think that if they have an issue it should be raised with the parent directly, not the child who has no say at that age. A soreen bar isn’t the healthiest option of course but nor is it akin to a Mars bar.
I would be interested to know if there is a difference in levels of childhood obesity in the schools that are really strict and those that aren’t. I guess it would be tricky to compare as you would need to include other factors too.

The more we police food in this way, the more unhealthily our society gets. Its teaching children that certain food has a higher treat status than others and makes them crave it more. It shames parents who may just be doing the best they can.

DD was sent home with the dreaded red card on her lunch box for having 2 inappropriate items, the first was a chocolate mousse (less calories and sugar than her usual one), the second one was flavoured water. Big red sticker on the front of the lunch box with a frowny face. Luckily DD is quite resilient and we've decided to make a game of how many red stickers we can collect, DS on the other hand would have been heartbroken at having one and has since anxiety around his packed lunch not being just right he refuses to take anything different so has the same lunch everyday and has for 3 years now. In the rare occasion its something even remotely different, one brand for another, he tries to get his teacher to check in advance if its allowed.

Absolutely nothing wrong with a mini Soreen loaf.

And yet, they wonder why there are soaring levels of eating disorders in children and young people. They are being taught from being tiny that many foods = BAD rather than being taught balanced diets and healthier choices.

I really fear for my 2 year old daughter for when she starts school. Every aspect of her - and our - lives will be analysed and policed.

OMG lives are not policed ffs- poor schools with parents like half on this thread no wonder recruiting is so hard.

We have an obesity crisis, completely warped views of what size is healthy, shocking salt and sugar levels in our processed foods. 1 in 4 5year olds have tooth decay!
Does a teacher know the ins and outs of every item in every lunch box, do they know who is a neglectful parent and who is letting Johnny have a one off treat- no because quite frankly their job is to teach. Follow the rules, the uniform, the packed lunch box and let them focus on the job in hand.

At my kids primaries it was fruit and veg only for a snack - sensible in my opinion as it saves staff having to check each kids snack bar - yes some parents send very unhealthy food. Schools have to do this because of the very poor choices some families make, and it's not usually financially related because snack bars and pre packed cheese and crackers etc cost more than a simple sandwich and veg

I’m torn on this as my immediate reaction is schools should not be dictating what parents give their children for snack/lunch. It’s not representative of what they eat across a day or week necessarily and there are constraints in terms of what’s portable/perishable etc. for lunches.

At my DC primary, school lunch is compulsory unless you go offsite. Last year they started with no puddings for lunch and instead offer unlimited fruit. The lunches are very healthy, often veggie but £2.60 per day. It’s fruit only for morning snack and anything else brought in is confiscated.

Now this could be due to lots of factors (including parents providing nutrition meals the rest of the time!) but I will say it was very noticeable at school sports day that there are hardly any overweight children. 🤷‍♀️ Lots of the children are also walking and cycling to school.

5 weeks to go... just look at it that way. Secondary is a whole different world!

JudgeRindersMinder that's exactly the sort of rude and unsupportive comment from a parent which has made a teacher friend of mine hand in her notice this term. A "last straw" effect.

Why not support the school, or at least treat the staff with respect? If you don't like the school, move your child or home educate.

Guess what? My friend is not the only teacher to resign this term because of abuse from parents. The school is now struggling to attract replacements, so a poorer education for many children in September.

But congratulations on your superior knowledge.

Whilst I agree we are in an obesity crisis we STILL need sugar in our diets and admonishing a child or removing food from them is NOT the way to address this

Sorry, but you're wrong there. Although I disagree with teachers policing snacks, we absolutely do not need sugar in our diets. We need the natural sugars that are present in fruits and vegetables, but not the white sugar in cakes, biscuits and pastries.^^

It's hard to avoid today, as sugar is added to so many processed food, and it's almost impossible to cut it out entirely, but we certainly don't need it.

I taught abroad in a school that had zero healthy lunch/snack policy. One child in Year 2 was sent to school with a Swiss Roll for his lunch. An entire Swiss Roll chopped into quarters. This wasn't extraordinary either.

I remember when my dds primary tried to ban cheese from snacks and from lunch boxes because they said it was bad for you. There was uproar

I would have thought fruit would sustain kids longer than ultra processed cake like Soreen. The fibre and water in fruit means the glycaemic load is smaller - the energy is released more slowly. Did you try the satsumas and find she wasn’t concentrating or is that just an assumption?

DD was under a dietician to gain weight, and was told specifically to eat a cake or full fat yogurt as a snack mid morning and mid afternoon, and buy something else from the school canteen to eat at lunchtime like a cookie - not the smallest thing she could find! In addition, she was to have a 4th meal before bed time.

It drove me nuts, when schools came up with one size fits all rules; when they didn’t know what they were talking about!

DD was under a dietician to gain weight, and was told specifically to eat a cake or full fat yogurt as a snack mid morning and mid afternoon, and buy something else from the school canteen to eat at lunchtime like a cookie - not the smallest thing she could find! In addition, she was to have a 4th meal before bed time.
It drove me nuts, when schools came up with one size fits all rules; when they didn’t know what they were talking about! with all due respect common sense tells you your child is in the minority- a simple letter would have explained this exception.

@motogirl

They don't need to look at every snack bar, they don't need to look at anything. If the kids are full, happy and ready to learn does it really matter they're having to eat? Surely that's up to the parents to decide. I don't want school to parent my child, I want them to teach them how to read and write.

This obsession with healthy eating is driving more and more kids into severely disordered eating.

Never ceases to amaze me how much some others will fight back over suggestions that their child’s diet could be improved

Remember the mums passing chips to their children through the school fence when Jamie Oliver tried to improve school nutrition?

as someone who is studying public health communication it makes me despair how people fight back against every attempt to prevent the health crisis that awaits the children who are living on energy dense/ nutrient low foods and whose parents would riot for them to be able to have a mini roll in their lunch box but have a peep to say about the tories funnelling public funds into their friends pockets

You have outsourced your child’s education to school which is about a hell of a lot more than reading and writing and defiantly should include healthy eating and nutrition!

if you want them educated yourself way. Do it yourself

God I'd hate to be a teacher. The classroom teacher isn't making the rules for what children can have in their lunchboxes or what is in the school dinner yet they're the ones who have to police it and deal with the smart arse parents.

No payment would be enough.

I argued with ds school when he was primary. He always took a generally healthy lunch one day he had a muller corner. They told him it was too big and unhealthy and would go to waste if opened.
A, it was a one off as didnt have a smaller yoghurt left.
B, i know damn well he'd eat it, i wouldn't put it in if i knew a half empty splatted about yoghurt would be left to find for me to clean
C. There was one lad who was fussy. No Special need. His lunch bread and butter, mini fingers, mini cheddar, choc animals haribo x 2 small packs, a frube and a twix EVERY DAY. I know this as i was a lunch assistant a few months before. And was ds good friend. Because if he didn't take that he didnt eat!

Why did you have to argue with the teacher?! Why couldnt you just accept what they were saying? Why try and put down a teacher, showing your child that they and their rules can be disregarded.
Honestly people say "kids today"- it starts from the parents.

I'm not from the UK and everyone ate school lunch so packed lunch is a bit foreing to me. Been watching the neighbours kid with their lunch bag running out. But I don't think you can dictate school lunches (not jncluding class allergies in this) if you don't provide lunch. It's good to give some guidance to parents what is a good lunch but commenting on basic snacks. Maybe I can kinda understand the no exclusively choco for lunch but I dunno.

@SomePosters

Yes you're right, it's about so much more. But very little will sink in if kids are sat there hungry, because half their lunch has been confiscated, or they're worried that the dinner lady will tell them off for having a soreen bar.

Don't you see the irony in how as a society the more obsessed we've got with healthy eating, the fatter we've all become.

I'm not advocating unhealthy eating, I just think there's an awful lot to be said about not giving certain food this god like status of being a treat food by banning it. Why have all that aggravation over a kids packed lunch, I can't imagine the teachers and lunch assistants are particularly thrilled about having to enforce it either.

Not in the UK, but we have the policies here. My dgd went to a kinder where they were very strict about what could be in their lunch-box. Now she is in a school where there are no such rules and she has the healthiest lunch-box going. One of her class-mates is sent in with huge packet of biscuits for lunch and is already obese.

My DH baked fresh, low-sugar courgette and date muffins and sent half a muffin (half!) in 4yo DD’s lunch box. She came home in tears saying she got in trouble for having cake and “making bad choices”. 🙄 I swear, these kids are going to develop a complex…