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)

More likely to be an over-zealous dinner lady with no clue about nutrition.

My son is diagnosed with ARFID, I dare anyone to come at me about what I put in his packed lunch! I put in the best balance I can of safe foods. He's often over stimulated and feeling fragile at school, we save boundary pushing with foods for home when the environment is calmer and more controlled. I wouldn't be putting up with anyone interfering with his food, it could be disastrous if they put him off one of his safe foods. We work with a dietitian to try to expand his food intake in a controlled way.

I'm all for encouraging healthy eating, but dictating what foods parents can put in lunches isn't on.

This. Policing lunch boxes is appalling behaviour.

What is going on with schools. They are getting more and more like the Gestapo.
local primary telling 7 year olds that they will get daily homework and terrifying the children with threats of detention.
They also check packed lunch boxes.
crossing the line in my opinion

A firmly written letter to the head saying under no circumstances will your DC’s bags be checked or will you receive a letter about their packed lunch. Good points about the pizza and sausages would be worth including and the ‘we used to dare each other to eat dry crackers it was so hard to do’ to emphasise ludacris situation.

job done.

my OH did this about DSS being pulled up about about his school uniform,- some minor issue that I can’t remember- but we never heard a peep about it again from the school.

Children should not be on a low-fat diet. The essential fatty acids in fat are important for brain development.

I think people are perhaps misimagining what it means by lunch boxes being checked. I'm curious how many stories on this thread involve children above about Y3? Because I know when staff at my school (not teachers, whose job role doesn't involve working in the dinner hall over lunch) have asked children to take something home, it's because they've been helping them open a frube or whatever and they see the rest. It's generally quite easy to see what children have as you wander round anyway. There's not time to individually rummage through individual boxes.

The stories on this thread are clearly schools overstepping the mark, but some lunch boxes are genuinely astounding - KitKat Chunky, cake and penguin biscuit all for one KS1 child for example, alongside all the savoury stuff. I think in those circumstances it is okay to ask the child to choose one sweet thing. Why schools are bothering about homemade cake or crackers is beyond me.

It's ridiculous isn't it OP?

They have no idea what you serve them at home. A healthy diet is one that is balanced so does include treats occasionally.

I'm not saying children should have a lunch consisting of just sugar or anything else.

And you can't tell by looking that a chocolate muffin is full of sugar or it has been made with courgettes.

I wonder if the crackers would've been mentioned if the rest of the lunch was healthy, a jam sandwich, chocolate bar and yoghurt (I doubt it's natural yoghurt more likely to be munch bunch or a frube full of refined sugar) ,balance is important and those lunches don't have that.

I assume Scotland 🙄

Not peanut butter!!! Nuts usually banned at schools as can cause anaphylaxis in allergy sufferers.

I'd forgotten about the allergy as it was always a staple in our house. Admittedly not recently.

I think if schools want better pack lunches they need to provide facilities to actually keep the food chilled and for possible light heating depending on age.

I don’t mean giving children kettles of boiling water but some way or rewarming food such as microwave.

Have a mid morning snack is not a new thing ! I had a bottle of milk and biscuit in 70s ,my children did have snack in early 00s at primary school.
Of course some children will have unhealthy packed lunches but the school alternatives were far worse dietary wise !
So so glad this nonsense didn’t exist when my lot a primary school!
Who is the dietician at the school?
I think this is a nanny state on steroids TBH
Having adults checking every morsel that goes in a child’s mouth is a disaster for impressionable children ,ie hello ED when I am a teenager !

Odd... My hummus doesn't have sesame in! Just smooshed chickpeas and lemon juice in the main.

Hummus bi tahini is the full name, I believe, and it's properly made with chickpeas, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, other spices and flavourings (e.g. cumin) and tahini, which is sesame paste.

Would they allow your homemade, non-sesame version??

Fully agree with this. Butter in small quantities is healthy and much better than say margarine.

However, I wouldn't be giving my children chocolate daily as part of lunch, even if it is small. I myself don't eat chocolate and sweets daily and neither should children, imo. A fruit is a much better "sweet treat" or you could try crudités (carrots, cucumber, tomatoes...)

Hard to say on the yoghurt. If it's plain natural then fine or with added fruit. But if it's ultra processed and full of sugar, no.

The OP clearly states she's in NI.. in both her posts...

I think my DC school knows me well enough to know I wouldn't send in nuts or seeds. My recipe is for olive oil hummus btw, not tahini. It's a recipe I actually got from one of DC schools because they made it in school when studying Ancient Greece.

But the school’s idea of healthy is batshittery of the highest order! Either provide a proper list of permissible snack and lunch items which has been devised by an NHS registered dietitian or a BANT registered nutritionist or shut the fuck up! And frankly, if you are going to be picky about anything maybe start with the school lunches first and set some sort of example. The teacher with ‘an interest in sport’ ought to either get up to speed with what really constitutes healthy eating or keep her gob shut. I really wouldn’t be having this sort of massive over reach OP - the cheek of it!

I feel for you. We had this 15 years ago at primary school and I honestly cannot believe that this is still going on. We sometimes gave our children a small extra treat in their packed lunches for various personal family reasons such as when they had made their bed for the first time, passed a music exam etc. The food police at school really got on our nerves ( I hasten to add we were sensitive about not including allergens such as nuts etc.). It even created an atmosphere of "busybodiness" at school whereby one of our children got dobbed in by another child but the supposedly offending item had to be returned to the lunchbox when it was found to be on the innocent list 🙄; the highly restrictive policy was made to look even more ridiculous when we realised that school allowed "FRUIT Strings" (what clever marketing on the part of the manufacturers)😂.

This! I can’t believe they are giving you advice on the packed lunches when they are serving pizza and chips! Go back to them with this and see how they respond