School lunchbox police

[Beyondbeliefsometimes]

Just after some input on others thoughts. Kids have come home from school that they are to have a healthy snack at school. The last few years my kids have been taking a fruit and the youngest also 3 cream crackers with a slither of butter (she doesn't like much butter). My youngest only eats fruit for breakfast, so 3 hours later she is hungry and does need a carb of some sort. Occasionally she will have bread sticks.
She has now been told that she isn't allowed butter, it is not healthy, she is to have dry crackers.
Their lunch consists of a sandwich, a yogurt and a small fun size bar. They have been told there is too much in their lunch bag... On a Friday when school dinners are hot dogs or pizza, they occasionally, very occasionally get a jam sandwich as a treat, they have been told this is not healthy enough. Yet if I paid for school dinners they could eat the healthy alternative of pizza or deep fried chips and sausages... Make it make sense to me! Also not allowed sugar free squash which they will still be getting as my youngest has constipation and needs lots of fluids to help and that doesn't happen when drinking water only. They have also been told their lunch bags will be checked. Yet dinner always involves a cake of some sort!

It is the dry crackers for me... Is this bat crazy or am I so out of line that they dry crackers is suitable. Jeepers we used to dare each other as kids to eat them dry it was that hard to do

(both my kids do afterschool sports 5 days a week and gymnastics at weekend. Both always need their clothes taken in as they waist size is much smaller than their height, you cna count every rib they have from across the room. So definitely not over weight. We are also in NI so back to school already)

Blimey, the creeps from a wee bit of butter? They're little round circles of buttery deliciousness.

@Puffalicious oh I agree it doesn't seem to apply to high schools, just primary. I guess they realise they can't slide it passed the high school kids.

I work in a high school now and it's full on iced doughnuts every Friday.

This!

As someone pointed out earlier, has the school brought in a nutrionalist or just a random person deciding this. Have they considered each child's whole daily intake? Their breakfast, dinner and supper could be very, very healthy but requiring heat/cooker so the parent does less healthy, cold lunches.

Butter is more preferable and healthier than marge or pretend cheese spreads with all their additives. And a reminder that sugar is healthier than these sweeteners which are being added instead, some people react badly to them.

The OP stated clearly that the cream crackers are a mid-morning snack, not lunch. Lunch is a sandwich, a yoghurt and a fun-size bar.

YANBU. Its this bonkers mixed messaging that means kids can't tell the healthy food from the crap. Our local leisure centres stopped selling chips and coke in favour of "healthy snacks" as it advertises on the notice board above the cakes and the slushie machine!

Ridiculous. How dare they?

I remember when my daughter was at primary she was a very picky eater, and was throwing away her (healthy) food and just eating the fruit, which wasn't enough to sustain her through the rest of the day. A neighbour who worked at the school told me about it, and I decided to send my daughter with something she would eat so at least she had calories, and feed her something more nutritious at home. A few days later I got a note from the HT (complete with a patronising leaflet on nutrition) saying that lemon curd sandwiches had X grams of sugar and Y carbs, and had I considered salad, or raw vegetables?

I was furious, as I was already struggling with daughter's faddy eating, and felt like a failure already. Feeding children goes to the heart of parenting, and criticism can be hard to take - we'd tried everything we could think of, and had come to a reasoned decision which was being questioned by someone who presumably knew no more than we did about nutrition. And of course most people know that a diet made up of exclusively sugary sandwiches is not ideal. But better than having no food at all, and she was my child, so it was my decision to make.

This was over 20 years ago, and there was no 'banning' of foodstuffs (on whose authority can teachers ban food?) in those days, but I remember it well.

The butter thing is madness but I do kind of see that the overall provision for your kids at school involves no fruit or veg, and a lot of sugar. It’s not just about how fat or thin they are but if their bodies and brains are getting the best nutrition for a full day at school plus clubs afterwards.

If the yoghurt is a sugary one I’d switch for a mini cheese or plain Greek yoghurt and add in a portion of veg sticks and some fruit.

Maybe they’re just badly articulating that in general the lunch you’re providing isn’t great but instead of saying that picking on random bits of it.

No peanut butter in most schools. They tend to be nut free.

Sounds like just what I'm after for dd, do you mind sharing the recipes if it's not too much hassle? No worries if not x

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/recipes/savoury-carrot-and-courgette-muffins Links at bottom of page to other savoury muffin recipes.

It’s not their business if you have a different definition of healthy eating than they do. If your children are within the healthy range of weight for their height they are seriously overstepping. Children are not property of the state to be raised how the school dictates.

Are they actually allowed to dictate and inspect what children are eating?

I taught in Scotland and there was none of this at all. In fact, when the school did a Healthy Snack drive, getting house points for bringing healthy snacks, there was such a kerfuffle about what was technically healthy etc that it died a death.
Then you had the parents with the "That fucking school can't tell me what food my kids can eat" etc

Our kids brought and ate what they wanted.

So just to clarify a few points, they are not allowed heated food, even in a flask. It is too dangerous. I didn't start off with a little bar but the kids who take dinners and lunches all sit in the one hall and they where seeing the dinner kids getting ice cream, buns or busicuits for desert everyday. I don't think desert should follow every meal. It should be a treat. They don't have lunches every day, they get school dinners on the days they have proper meals (ie meat spuds and veg or lasagna, chicken curry etc. My kids won't eat sausages, pizza, chips etc. They also don't eat mcdonalds for etc, not that I stop them, it gives them sore tummies). So the days they take lunches is when the dinner kids are having pizza/burgers/sausages plus whatever the desert is that day, ice cream etc.

Someone said up thread that pizza isn't unhealthy, we aren't allowed to send that in as it is unhealthy. My older child did take cooked (not deli) chicken in as a snack along with her fruit but my youngest won't eat it unless in a dinner.

It is a teacher who has an interest in sport who has implemented it. She is also looking over kids shoulders while eating saying, that is a healthy lunch well done and moving on to the next saying, ohhh that's not so healthy is in. This wasn't too my kids (youngest is 5). To me this is bullying of small kids who have zero control over what goes in their lunch bag and is on a path to causing eating issues.

No sandwiches are not the best, my alternatives are very small though. I can't send any nut products for those suggesting peanutbutter. They have had soft cheese removed from them last year. I do send hard cheese sometimes as well but again that all the time is not great! A mum was telling me she had raisins sent home. The ok list is very small. But thanks to the poster who said ask for a list of banned and OK foods. I'm going to do that. But I'm also going to tell them that I will be sending what I feel is suitable for my kids.
My youngest only eats grated cheese, maybe I should send that a few days, the clean up from that alone may make them reconsider lol

For those who are saying about schools being back already, as stated in OP I'm in NI and kids here are off from last week of June.

The school have not communicated any of this with the parents either. Surley that's essential as the ones who make that lunches.

Also yes to the crackers but no butter is madness! My kids don't have crackers outside of school. It is just they are on the ok list for school.

Not that this applies to me thankfully but there are also plenty of families who cannot afford to buy fresh fruit etc at the end of the week and may only have the chocolate bar in the cupboard. So removing that is removing the kids only food.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts, even those in agreement with the school. It's helpful to know that she isn't totally floating out on her own.

Ágh typos but you should hopefully make it out

Refuse to allow them to check. I would seek legal advice actually I can’t believe this is real! I’d be furious. You are correct that it’s fucking insane and that the school dinners are not healthy

Most schools are nut free

Good reply OP - like you say the lack of communication is the big problem. If no one knows what the rules are then it's just guesswork. Also the contradiction between school dinners and lunches doesn't sound right - they need to be consistent.

But for the people saying that it's an outrage that schools are checking kids lunches, everyone would prefer it if it wasn't necessary but kids are eating so poorly and we should want to improve their health. Saying that your kids are skinny is irrelevant. Skinny doesn't mean healthy. This is another problem with our understanding of nutrition.

That teacher is an absolute melt. How dare she peer over their shoulders squawking that a child's lunch isn't healthy enough. She's begging for a generation of disordered eaters. I'd honestly be complaining about that. If she's determined to be a pain in the arse, she should have the insight to do it in private.

😂 and how do they plan to police this? My DPs used to own a sweet shop/newsagents. Every day from 0815-0900 and then again from 1520-1600 it was packed out with kids and parents! There were 3 primary schools and 3 high schools nearby.

Who on earth do they think they are, determining what you spend your money on and what you eat?

Why do they even need a snack, lunch is usually at 12 and always before 1pm in primary schools. If they won’t eat breakfast, then fruit or vegetables ( carrot/cekery/cucumber sticks.will do to fill the gap. I did have one pupil who had a Bircher in a small tub every day, but really break is for the kids to run about, not sit down and eat.
This is a relatively new thing to bring snacks to school- my DC now in their 20s never did this. They used to get milk or fruit in infants, but the bigger children just had breakfast and lunch.
Most schools now provide fruit and yogurt as a dessert, with occasional biscuits or fruit crumble as a special treat. They are trying hard to create healthy food habits for a generation of children who are heavier than in the past, and it seems that some parents are doing their best to undermine schools’ healthy eating agenda. I know some parents have very special unique kids, but with the exception of diagnosed medical issues, it does not help the ethos if there are dozens of exceptions to school rules because little Johnny has to be different.
No child needs to eat crackers or sweets or crisps before lunch ( or arguably at all). There are plenty of healthier alternatives if little Johnny really does need a snack.
IndivIdually, rules can be annoying, but in a school situation they are necessary, and consistency is vital . You cannot have 400 children all doing what they want. The rules are formulated for the benefit of all the children, and individual whims of one child ( or their parents) don’t trump that.
Of course no one is going to agree broth all the rules but you have to keep the bigger picture in mind, which in this case is healthy eating habits for all the children.

It’s a primary school so I assume they are going to be at the gates !

I just realised that in an earlier reply I used the term "nutritionist", which was not a good choice. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist; dietitian is the protected term. So thanks for the prompt. (I actually knew that one of them was not a protected term, but somehow I'd convinced myself that it was dietitian!)

Or, as was the case when I went to school in the ‘80s, schools could accept their purpose is education. We all took sandwiches, crisp, usually a biscuit like a penguin for lunch and sometimes an extra biscuit for break. School dinners were good too; chocolate sponge and strawberry custard was a favourite here.

I don’t remember any obese kids. About 90% would’ve walked to school though, most families only had one car.