Scottish Government nursery food restrictions

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Some of you may have heard that the Scottish government are introducing guidance called Setting The Table from 1st August in all nursery settings. It’s to try and tackle the obesity issue within the country.

The guidance calls for a complete ban on things like fruit juice or smoothies, with condiments like ketchup to be used only when food is too dry.

One of the aspects which has really caused a stir is the restriction on birthday cake.

At my child’s nursery, the kids bring in a cake when it’s their birthday and it’s divided up into little slices for the kids and staff. I imagine that’s the same all over the country.

Our nursery have said they’ll still allow cake to come in (after the parents overwhelmingly opposed a ban).

IMO, this is a giant step too far from the government. Parents should be able to parent their child, it’s not for the SNP to decide if your kid gets a slice of cake at their friend’s little nursery party.

Great way to introduce disordered eating from a very young age. What idiot thought that one up?

Bloody hell talk about sucking the joy out of eating. Also substituting natural products like butter with UPF margarine/spread isn’t a good look.

There are huge problems with children who have allergies when items like cakes are brought into school.
I imagine that this is about preventing issues around that, and also parents smuggling in treats- remember the parents feeding chips to their kids through the school fence!
If your nursery have decided to ignore the guidelines on cake it won't be a problem for you though?

It’s not what they eat at school or nursery that’s making them fat though is it!! Pointless.

Yeah it doesn’t affect me, I think this whole thing is a great example of just how out of touch the government are, though.

I genuinely don’t know how they’ve created a guideline that’s made it all the way to being published (presumably in partnership with the NHS), which calls for outright bans on food. Labelling certain foods as bad is a terrible idea, IMO.

I’ve heard of this a lot at nurseries in England. My sisters kids used to take in a big fruit platter instead.