to ask if your DCs school has a healthy lunch box policy and what you think of it?

[NorfolkBroad]

Is it "enforced"? Do you find it annoying and intefering? Does your child eat what you put in their lunchbox? I'm asking as a mum but also as a teacher.

Ours says no whole nuts, no bones, and no cans.

I used to supervise lunch in playgroup plus though and they were mostly horiffic;
Mint Sauce or ketchup on a slice of bread folded over and that was it,
Chocolate spread sandwich, chocolate mousse, chocolate bar and chocolate milk,
Cold happy meal,
Sandwiches, jumbo sausage roll, grab bag of wotsits, mars bar and bottle of ribena,
Teddy meat and crisp roll, kit kat, rocky, cake and chocolate yoghurt.
All of these were daily for three and four year olds.

However, I still think that school is not there to parent parents.

yes they have and they enforce it + it's nuts and seeds free because a child has severe allergies.
I'm OK with it. dc doesn't need chocolate or crisps with his lunch.

DS's packed lunch of ham sandwich, dairlylea dunker, banana and cake bar was deemed healthy ish, but not healthy enough. Presumably it was the cake bar they had a problem with. Perhaps I should put him on school dinners so he can have a big slab of cake and custard each day, much better apparently

Yes, Kitsmummy, that's the ridiculous thing. School dinners are not really healthy.

FWIW, I completely support the banning of nuts/seeds due to allergy. It's the assumption that I cannot control the odd treat simply because some parents are clueless that I object to.

Tbf though, it's probably only the banana in that lunch that is 'healthy'. A ham sandwich would be good if on wholemeal bread and with some tomato/cucumber. Dairylea Dunkers aren't healthy. Cake bars aren't healthy.

That will be how they looked at it.

Totally agree though that the school dinners wouldn't stand up to much scrutiny!

Healthy eating policies for lunch boxes are a bit of joke when school meals have a pudding every day. My poor hard-done-by kids get a treat in their lunch boxes once a week, I'm a mean Mummy, I am!

I actually think that a bigger problem is the amount of time they get to eat, I'm lucky if my 2 eat half their lunches as they are in a big hurry to get out to play, so I always have to make them finish them when they get home.

Anyway to be effective it would have to be policed and the parents would need to be sent a letter which, I am sure, would be far too labour intensive for any school to bother with.

I always tried to stick to processed ham once a week. Cheese, tuna and left over roast chicken is a much better option and always with either cucumber or tomato.

We're not there yet, but it's something I will be asking prospective schools about - DD has to have a low fiber diet for medical reasons.

That means no juice, limited fruit and no wholegrains. I will be extremely miffed if any schools are intending on telling her that is unhealthy.

I sooo disagree with school policing lunch boxes!!!

There is no such thing as a bad food- too much of anything is bad and everything in moderation is best! If I want to treat my child to a chocolate biccy then that is my business.

I really don't understand this policy of healthy lunch boxes, it's about balance, not forbidding certain foods.

My dd started saying she wanted to take water to drink at lunchtimes after they learnt about healthy drinks in Reception. Turns out the other children had started saying she was bad for taking pure orange diluted with water. So when was she supposed to drink juice if not with her lunch? The kids all thought juice was a bad drink! Sad.

Rather than outlawing certain foods, why can't they make suggestions for healthy additions to lunch boxes?

LaWeasel - Brace yourself!!!

I can just picture it now tbh. Children's television is bad enough - the sole message seems to be: be healthy eat fruit.

GAH. What's wrong with vegetables?! And children need fat too, preferably from nutritious sources like meat and dairy (and nuts if you're not my DD)

Are dairylea dunkers actually bad? It's just cheese and breadsticks isn't it? And I'm not sure if the ham sandwich was on white or brown, I alternate them. It was nice ham

it is enforced, very strictly
most of the children are fat

As with everything else to do with food in our society, we don't seem capable of coming up with a sensible balance. Why not formulate a policy that deals with extreme cases while accepting that including a few cookies / whatever in an otherwise healthy lunch isn't the end of the world?

I completely agree with you onefatcat.

My DD takes sandwiches made with wholemeal bread and tuna, cheese, left over meats (never use processed packet meats); roasted veg and couscous; left over home made curry (properly home made - not with a jar!).

She takes home made flapjacks/banana muffins/carrot cake/biscuits; a small pot of cherry tomatoes and a box of raisins and a carton of orange juice.

But she's not allowed 2 squares of chocolate. She is, however, allowed chocolate covered biscuits (which I don't send because of all the crap in the biscuits!)

Kitsmummy - I'm not sure how 'good' the cheese/breadsticks are though. Read the ingredients. Not as bad as somethings obviously. My DD sometimes takes frubes or similar and I have to reassure myself occasionally won't hurt!

I think all is forgiven though if it's naice ham!

I had a sneaky peek at the nutritional info and they don't look that bad. Quite high salt, I suppose. So depends what else they are getting for lunch/the rest of the day.

As an ex Healthy School coordinator I used to advise that schools encourage healthy eating by providing information to parents both about the school policies and about healthy packed lunches for those that wanted ideas, many of my schools offered cooking sessions for parents and kids that covered the basics but also recognised that many parents have the skills and knowledge to provide a well balanced lunch. However some clearly didn't evidenced by the child who had a family sized pack of sweets for lunch every day. None of the schools with a lunchbox policy had problems with parents because they were guidelines and encouragement NOT the food police, no food was ever taken off kids but the school newsletter would do reminders and meal ideas. The most sucessful scheme was a lunchbox lottery where one day a week randomly the school would announce it was lottery day and any pupil with for example, brown bread for their sandwiches, or a red piece of fruit or something like this would be given a raffle ticket and at the end of term they drew the raffle for a prize. The kids loved this and consequently badgered parents for healthier stuff to be included in their lunchbox in case that day was lottery day. also there were assemblies about healthy eating and the science curriculum did balance of good health type work. it was also well received when a school did a display of lunchboxes at parents evening showing cost of one with loads of supermarket lunchbox stuff like the cheese strings, dippers etc and ready prepared food then one with home stuff like a slice of 'real' cheese etc, not only was it shown to be more expensive to use pre-packed stuff but they also had analysed it for salt sugar and fat content which came as a shock to many parents. HTH

Thanks LaWeasel, and I do actually give him the ones with breadsticks, not the Ritz crackers, so I think they'd be less salt again than those.

No, there isn't one at DS's school .

I like the lottery idea ecclescake it's a bit more fun and less likely to be taken personally by parents with kids on specialised diets if on any given lottery day there will be lots of kids with healthy lunches who don't happen to have the right thing in their lunchbox that day.

I also like the idea of sending out lunchbox suggestions to new parents in the information pack. The government's suggestions (if anyone remembers them from a while ago!) were really pretty unrealistic when it is easy enough to make a sandwich, drink, side and treat more healthy/less processed.

School meals are supposed to be nutritionally analysed and in my area they are most schools here have really good lunches. Healthy food is about a healthy balance, children need carbohydrate so school puddings are ok, as is a cake or flapjack in a lunchbox, its the crisps every day (tons of salt) or sweets and extremely sugary pudding things that are over processed that should be avoided as a regular item, an occaisional treat, crisps on friday, sweets once a week, is fine, it is about finding healthier alternatives to some of the very processed junk that many kids consume daily. As I said look at the balance of good health for a guide to how much of each food group kids need, get this balance right and kids will be healthier encouragement and guidance is the key not dictatorship. Yes there are many parents who know what's healthy and what's not but also many who don't and want support.

I think there is a vague one at DDs school. She does have some chocolate every day, a small bag of maltesers or smarties.
Some days she takes ravioli or beans and sausages in a flask, other days she has a sausage roll or ham sandwich.
I will give her whatever she'll eat TBH. Fruit and veg don't play a big role in her life [shrug]