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?!

Absolutely. In terms of school meals the ideal solution would be sufficient funding to pay experts to put together a rolling menu and that to be provided by a company that is not for profit.

kids will eat a much more varied diet if they are all doing it and no one has carefully advertised shiny packets of crap.

i would also advocate for involving children in the process from school gardens to actually planning and preparing menus with teacher support.

Most importantly I would advocate for getting them much, much more active in the day so they are properly hungry when lunch comes.

Not going to happen under the tories though

We only have fruit for snack time (mid morning) at my school-I didn’t think that was particularly unusual.

@SomePosters

I completely agree with you.

When people come to me about their child getting 'the letter' they're usually quite irate and angry, completely convinced that there's nothing wrong at all and their child is the picture of good health.

And yes, sometimes, a child is just about to grow 3 inches and in 2 months time will be bang on healthy bMI.

But quite often, that's not the case, and when you look at the comprehensive food charts that are completed, it's quite shocking what a small child can consume in a day. When speaking to the parents about it, they usually defend it with no time, no money, no knowledge. I've been told by 1 parent that he gives his child pot noodles because super noodles don't have veg in them. To him, thst is making a healthy choice.

We do give kids too much UPF. We give them so much that we can't even identify it. It's not just the impact of UPF on health, but also on the environment.

Our school allows bad snacks. Those who bring in fruit or veg get a token. Those who bring in fruit or veg that has minimal packaging e.g apple, gets another token. There is a small reward each month for those with the most tokens.

Using school dinners as an excuse for giving a child too much pre packaged processed snacks is a poor reason.

That post doesnt provide any evidence that the teacher was 'put down.

Why cant the poster accept what the teacher was saying? Because the teacher was wrong

But malt loaf is directly recommended for the lunch packs for fsm children that we made up during lockdown.
Those soreen miniloaves were in the guidance. They can't have it both ways!

Are you a gp?

Thats exactly the kind of thing I mean and I think why it is so hard for people to take on board. Most people are trying the best with what they have and a very few don’t give a shit but almost everyone doubles down rather than question themselves and address their choices.

the weighing scheme is one of the most important public health measures we have for children but every time it comes around social media is full of people advising to withdraw children from the nanny state programme and claiming weighing them will cause MH issues

I usually ask things like ‘can they climb a flight of stairs without getting out of breath’ but I’ve been kicked from more than one parenting group for saying (as gently as possible) that ignoring medical advice about your kid is irresponsible and if you want to dispute the letter take the kid to a gp and have an honest conversation with an open mind.

But as we see here, folk would sooner try and discredit someone over typos than take an honest look at their food choices and what harm they may be doing their children

I am far from perfect and I understand feeling defensive when you’re trying your best but I’m lost as to how to reach past the doubling down

@RegardingMary it’s also that parents compare their child to other children around. If a lot of those children are overweight, then their child looks ok compare to others.

Ive been told many many times that my dcs were skinny (they got similar comments themselves) but each time that we’ve been going to the beach france, they just look normal compare to the other children there….

Clothes can have the same effect. Even as older teens, my two dcs struggle to find clothes that fit. Tshirt in particular are always too baggy. Which makes you feel that the child/teen is very thin etc… But again back to France and clothes at the same size just fit perfectly.
Because the average body shape in the U.K. is different and average children/teen tend to need ‘baggier’ clothes, those who are a totally normal BMI look skinny iyswim.

Our school has started trying to be this picky in order to obtain a healthy school certification. Annoyingly it has created a real 'us and them' atmosphere between parents and school. Parents are unhappy that they are being policed when school dinners consist of chicken nuggets, chips, hotdogs, pizza, burgers and fish fingers.

I was surprised that the school has to pay to get a healthy school certification, it's only a couple of hundred pounds but it's more then they can spare when teachers are supplying things like glue sticks out of thier own pockets.

@SomePosters
I'm a nurse, mainly in a GP's.

It's something we see time and time again, I run a clinic for children who have an unhealthy BMI as a small part of my role, usually it's just a preliminary weight/height, a week of food diaries and some general healthy eating advice/pointers. I refer to a local family centre that help set up fruit and veg vouchers for those who are entitled, deliver cooking classes based on Jack Monroe along with fully priced weekly shopping lists for those who'd benefit from that. None of it is particularly ground breaking but we've had some brilliant results when people really do try, no short term fixes, no diets, just small lifestyle changes one step at a time. We try not to shame or embarrass or blame and a good percentage of the time when people realise you don't think they're a shit parent and you're not judging, they start listening.

That’s a really good initiative and will help both the children and the parents!

@MumbleAlwaysMumble

Yes, and in the part of the country I'm in, many grandparents keenly remember being hungry as children and not having enough food, they've glutted their own children, and they've followed suit with their children.

Having a big strong strapping child is seen as a prize compared to a skinny one.

It's your job to decide what goes in your kid's lunchbox, not the teacher. This is yet another example of schools trying to parent, instead of their own job which is to teach.

with all due respect common sense tells you your child is in the minority- a simple letter would have explained this exception.

You are making the false assumption that the school was likely to listen!

As I posted in another thread about an anxious child, I asked the secondary school not to make DD do anything she didn’t want to do, like the climbing wall, on a team building course! What did they do - made her do the climbing wall! She refused to go back to school!

I’m saying we don’t assume every kid with a cake needs the cake- cut the school some slack. To each of us we have 1,2 maybe 3 kids to know everything about them, 30kids per class- excuse the fact they don’t know the ins and outs of everything. Kids need to understand respect for rules and teachers.

Nothing to do with kids understanding they need to respect the rules though.

The issue is a rule that can end having a negative effect on the child. Whether it’s asking them to climb a wall or not eat cake when their energy needs are bigger than other children.

I used to take flying saucers, dib dabs, lemon sherbets and koala cubes to school. The fact that I am a recovered anorexic is not because of that. More because of being made to sit on the stage until I ate cabbage and pigs liver because of the starving children in India. And the fact I suspect there is a genetic connection. Mother has never been over 8.5st. DD had had so.e disordered eating in her teens but I was on it straight away- not helped by a school nurse giving her an obese letter in y5. She started her periods at the beginning of Y6 and if one put in the same age and height of a 13 year old, she was not overweight at 10, she had the body of a 13 year old. Didn't stop her descending to 6st12lb at 15 though.

The problem is these people are given basic data and do not have the intellect to apply it.

In every school there is a bully. The villa isn't always a child.

My 2DC spent most of their infant and junior school overseas and it was nothing like it is over here. I just find the school massively intrusive.

As far as I am concerned, their job is to teach them subjects and not parent my children, nor brainwash them on the most recent woke crap. The overseas schools we attended did none of this and just got on with teaching them.

I understand that a small percentage of children need looking out for, but the majority don’t and so they should just focus on them rather than on DC like the OP’s who on occasion tucks into a Soreen.

At our recent UK junior school I was asked about a mark on my kids face and I was told they have a file on every child where they note these things down. Perhaps if the school spent less time policing my parenting and getting my file ready for SS, and spent more time on the DC, then some boy in the class wouldn’t have smashed my son’s face into the wall, causing the mark.

Mini soreen loaves are fine at DS school as its within the 'allowed' sugar content (I can't remember what that is though).

We've been pulled up for sending (very diluted) sugar free squash in though, can only have water.

Wow thank you for all your responses, a mixed bag of reply’s!

Just to point out I think there is a world of difference between teaching healthy eating and good choices and policing children’s lunch boxes and essentially food shaming.

My DD was actually really embarrassed to have been given a lecture on the Soreen and has asked me not to get them again from the shops, this is absolutely, as far as I’m concerned a really mentally and emotionally unhealthy way to educate impressionable young children.

Kids need to understand respect for rules and teachers.

So, if Camhs, the consultant and dietician lay down one set of rules and the teacher contradicts that medical advice, why should a pupil respect the teacher, who doesn’t know what they are talking about and whose advice is positively harmful?

At our recent UK junior school I was asked about a mark on my kids face and I was told they have a file on every child where they note these things down. Perhaps if the school spent less time policing my parenting and getting my file ready for SS, and spent more time on the DC, then some boy in the class wouldn’t have smashed my son’s face into the wall, causing the mark

Please don't forget that many children are abused (I'm not saying yours is) and teachers can play a vital part in protecting them. Although tragically, as we've seen recently, it doesn't always make a difference.

It’s literally the schools job to note safe guarding concerns would you rather they didn’t bother and we had more incidents like that poor kid who starved to death in plain sight a few years back?

most kids will have very small files with notes of odd bruises or weird things said and some kids will have a huge file that is eventually the evidence ss will need to proved that a kid would be better off removed

the threshold for removing children is astoundingly high and getting defensive about basic safeguarding like noting down bruises is highly suspicious

if you know your child is loved, cared for and doesn’t flinch when you raise your arm you have no reason to have a problem with the precautions taken to protect children who aren’t lucky enough to be born into a loving family.

My kids primary is fruit and veg only for snacks. I think it's good; it's important that kids are getting one bit of unprocessed food a day.

I was parked up in a supermarket car park a few years ago at lunch time. Kids wandering out with litre tubs of ice cream & a packet of doughnuts.