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.

I really doubt a wholemeal pasta salad, carrot sticks, humous, 2 bits of fruit and water would have enough calories for an average child.

(And there is no way I would let DD have that unless the policy maker is volunteering to clear up her diarrhea for the next 3 days?)

ahhhh! Piglet imagining you and your Muppets thermos! Really hope your dd settles at school. I know it is a stressful time for mums and with your dds SN it must be particularly hard.

I agree, LaWeasel. I'd be getting called up to school because DD1 had stolen someone else's lunch to supplement her own! My 3 have huge appetites but are also extremely active kids and they simply need calories. I hav ebeen shocked when supply teaching to see lunchtime staff wander around like prison officers confiscating food deemed unacceptable. It is what happened at my children's last school and I just found it appalling, rude and condescending.

thanks Norfolk brings back fond memories of me pouring my juice into my red lid at lunch and drinking it. Thanks its so hard with a food refusing, dd who hates lunchtimes at school. Can't believe she left the naughties. I will just have to pack less and eat her lunch at home at the moment that she is part time.

When she is full time i will just pack less, half fruit,half naughties and a roll/sandwich. if she does not eat, she does not eat and recycle what i can for the next day, thrifty me. Hopefully then she will be hungry for dinner.

I am very opposed to such policies. IMO teachers should teach and parents should parent. If teachers tell parents that they do not have time to read with each child every week they also should not have time to inspect lunch boxes, matter of priorities in the end. However, I do accept that some parents do not seem to have any concept about healthy eating. I think that there is a clear role for local government, GPs, health visitors to educate parents who need some help in that respect. Mind you, I think the idea of a lottery mentioned by one of the posters is a brilliant idea. Very positive and relies on kids to educate their parents, would work well with parents open to such things, but not sure about kids of the parents who need most educating about food.

I completely agree, dikkert. Deciding what children eat is not a teacher's role. There might be a need to educate SOME parents but blanket policies that affect everyone are not the right way forward.

Some treats can form a part of a balanced diet. Making them forbidden is just as dangerous as giving too much of them. How many people struggling with their weight out their have issues with food as a reward or a kind of "forbidden fruit"?

When I was back at school almost everyone used to have a chocolate biscuit like a club or tix alongside their sandwiches and fruit. eE soon burned it off running around.

And it seems so hypocritical to forbid biscuits or chocolate in packed lunches when the school dinners have a pudding. It's completely illogical.

I don't know of any nutritionists who recommend kids eat cak. I imagine if such kids exist they are in the minority.

Obesity is a real problem today and I think it's very important to teach all kids/some parents about whats healthy. Most adults already know of course, others need reminding and some have no idea at all. All children need educating about food though.

I send my kids to school with good food but take no offence to school food recommendations. It's in all kids interest to be healthy.

It's been the case since the new HT took over 3/4 yrs ago. And if you don't follow the rules - anything flouting the 'rules' gets confiscated and the child goes hungry (happened once to my dc's - never again. I had sent them with a pepper and chicken wrap. A small block of cheese. 2 bits of fruit, a homemade flapjack, a small pasta salad, a handful of dried apricots each and 3 squares of DARK chocolate each. The wraps, the flapjacks, the pasta salads, the apricots and the dark chocolate got confiscated - leaving my DS's with just 2 bits of fruit and a block of cheese to eat. .

When I took this up with the HT, his response was : The wrap wasn't wholemeal (no it was blooming Gluten-free because DS1 is on a GF diet...). The flapjack was unhealthy. The pasta salad was confiscated because it wasn't wholemeal past. (again, because it was GF pasta...). The dried apricots were confiscated because dried fruit is too high in sugar. The dark chocolate was confiscated for being, well, chocolate, because obviously, 3 small squares of dark chocolate is going to make my very active, healthy weight boys suddenly turn into the most obese children ever...

I have posted this lunchbox menu before but it still haunts me. I once saw a child open a lunchbox that contained.... a pepperami stick, a packet of pork scratchings... and a chocolate mousse.

There needs to be a healthy lunchbox policy... if only to save that one child from early death from furred arteries. All you other Mums can rest assured that the teachers are picking up lovely lunchbox tips from your children... your very nourished and cared for children :-)

BUT... have just read the post before me.... where do you live Hunty Cat? That is appalling. (I wonder what the head had for lunch that day?)

I'm in north-east Essex, Shockers. The overweight HT is immeasurably proud of the school's 'Healthy School' status. If the state of his portly 'overhang' is anything to go by, I'll bet that chocolate biscuits and crisps form a higher percentage of his diet than is healthy...

That is completely appalling, Hunty. I think in your shoes I'd be starting a campaign for a non-lunatic lunchbox policy! I imagine there are quite a lot of pissed off parents at your DC's school.

lets face it if a parent is dumb enough to give their child chocolate milkshake with a box of jaffa cakes and mcdonalds in their lunchbox no amount of rules for the childs lunch is going to stop the parents feeding their child crap when they get home.

As far as I know, DS's school here in Oz doesn't have one.

The UK school did and it was fine. Just kept his lunches simple and healthy and if he wanted a 'treat' we got one outside of school hours. He lived.

He has a super healthy lunch Mon-Thurs here and has a sausage roll on Fridays from the canteen. This has also not caused him any problems.

hunty sorry, just come back to the thread to read your update. I am still seething for you. What kind of idiot is this man???? Do the other parents complain? His approach is wrong on so many levels but apart from anything else how dare he confiscate your childs lunch AT ALL!! It's like lovingthecoast said about lunchtime supervisors patrolling the canteen like prison officers. What a horrible atmosphere that must create.