to think its a bit tight when parents count a school dinner as THE main meal of the day

[MariahScarey]

all other things being equal (money activities etc)

have a colleague who makes her kids have sandwiches for tea " as they eat at school"

they have money, they can cook - is this laziness?
I know they wont starve or out, but I wouldnt count a tiny school meal that is then burned off as a main meal.

USUAL DISCLAIMERS

Yes there are worse things to worry to about
YEs its none of my business
Yes I am judging

A light evening meal is healthier for adults not growing normal weight active children!

trills you are funny today

in my dream world i wil be like Cher in that film where she eats canapés for every single meal

Oh, well my parents (mid sixties, no significant health issues) were bought up that way along with many others of their generation.

So why is it all of a sudden unhealthy for children to do the same now?

I think because most school dinners are pants, flippinada.

If it's healthiest to eat more in the morning and less in the evening then I am doing it wrong but I don't care.

Good point. The ones at my sons school are very good but I can see that's not the case everywhere.

Also, thinking about it, my parents used to go home for dinner (mid day) and it was a cooked meal.

So maybe the problem is the kind of food children are eating rather than how much they have and when.

AnnieL you talk a load of tosh, how can working full time not equate to time to cook? Unless you are full cordon bleuing it, many evening meals can be prepped in 10/15 mins whilst chatting to your kids and then left to cook without much input. I am out of the house from 7:15 am until at least 6 pm every day ( work full time) and my dcs get a home cooked hot meal every night. Fair enough for those with little kids with tiny appetites but a sandwich and soup would not cut it for sporty teenagers. Mine are all stick thin but they spend hours daily playing sport. If I know I have to go back out again after6/6:30 to run dcs around then I prep dinner the night before.

I'm sorry I don't really get it. Why do you have to have one hot meal a day, let alone 2? Food is food surely? What is wrong with a sandwich? I am sure a sandwich tea isn't just a sandwich - never is in our house. There may be fruit or salad, a drink (soup even), cake, yoghurt, all sorts of stuff. A sandwich is rarely a sandwich surely?

FWIW, mine have sandwiches at lunch and a hot meal in the evening. They wouldn't never want 2 hot meals and they eat plenty so they don't go hungry. It is only convention.

I really don't get the relevance of the temperature of the food to its nutrition and ability to fill you up. A sandwich can be more filling than 'hot' food.

And have you considered that the allegedly 'tiny' school meals are probably what children of that age are supposed to be eating? People in this country have gone a bit mad when it comes to portion size. That is why so many of us are obese - we need a lot less than we think we do!

YABU - if her children aren't complaining, ill and skinny why should you worry about them?

I was kind of making the point that you can turn anything into a stick to beat yourself with - do what suits you best.

As long as kids are healthy and happy it surely doesn't matter.

Loshad, if your kids are teens why on Earth are they not cooking their own hot meal? Or meal-planning and doing prep for it? Still expecting Mummy to come home and pander to them because they're tired? My 7-year-old and 4-year-old are being trained up to learn to cook as there's no way I'm coming home from a 12-hour shift and playing waitress to able-bodied people, or giving them the idea that it's 'Mum's job to cook and clean.

YABU

How is it different to a packed lunch for lunch and a cooked meal at dinner time?

Expat I'm not pandering to my teens, they get in with me, having been out of the house for the same length of time as me. They also have homework to do. They will happily cook if I want or need them to, but quite frankly they are very busy, and need to be getting on with their homework. The oldest one still at home will need 3As from his a levels, and that only happens with sustained hard work. I'm not being a martyr here, I am quite happy to cook.

I think lots of people eat about twice as much as they should and under estimate what goes in there mouths.

My exh used to declare that if meat was not present in lump form,or it didnt come on a plate so full he couldn't eat it all, was not hot,didn't contain a potato product,was not covered in gravy or sauce and didnt have an accompanying condiment like apple sauce/ mint/bread sauce ect then it was just a snack. He was greedy and very unhealthy.

I do think how you eat is very much dependant on how you grew up eating.

I personally have a large breakfast like porridge, then one light meal and one none light meal every day, I only snack on fruit and my kids do the same.

The light meal could be hot or cold.

"But really this is one of those thinly disguised "I'm a better parent than you threads", so it could be about anything, really."

This.

To be honest I think the hackneyed old phrase 'a hot cooked meal' is a bit rubbish. It is not whether the meal consists of hot, cooked food that is important - it is the quality of the food itself. Frankly a decent plate of sandwiches with some fruit and other bits on the side might be more nutritionally useful than many a hot cooked dinner. There are bigger things to worry about. If the children are happy, healthy, getting somewhere close to 5 a day, and not malnourished I couldn't care less.

School meals at our school are small and children dont always eat everything due to not liking parts etc. DS has a cooked meal every night regardless of whether he has had a cooked or sandwich lunch at school.

Its not exactly hard is it to cook a meal after finishing work, i'd hate to come home to sandwiches every night in the winter. Also kids dont get that much choice at primary and its nice to choose your favourite when you get home.

I predict this thread will shortly become awash with "I work 24 hours a day every day and still find time to cook three course meals you lazy uncaring slackers" type posts a la Monty Python

I have yet to see a child in our secondary school canteen with an assortment of food on their tray that could be described as a meal, let alone a healthy, balanced meal. It is truly dire. I don't mean the the food itself is bad, as it isn't, but the choices they make really are.

I agree during most of the year, but there's nothing like a Shepherds Pie or a Stew, or even soup when they get home in the winter.
My ds is 17, he leaves for school at 7.30 am and comes home at 4.30 pm.
In the cold and the dark Highland mornings and nights with a 30 mile bus journey each way.
His day is longer than mine, and he is also studying, so why wouldn't I cook for him, especially if I need to eat too?
As I said above, he often makes something himself, he's off to University next year, so needs to learn, and sometimes I just can't be bothered but I do prefer to.

At DS1's school they have to choose for the week on a menu card handed in on Monday, which works quite well, means I know what he's having and he doesn't freeze in the headlights having to choose and therefore plumping for chips every day or whatever.

I don't think anyone should ever ever ever have to endure eating a sandwich - they are sad beyond sad and if they were bad would be the work of the devil but they couldn't even muster that high accolade.

So yanbu at all or ever

I actually agree with ivykaty - with the exception of a bacon or chip butty, sandwiches are sad things and a waste of calories.

I cant see the difference between a sandwich for lunch and a hot meal for dinner. Its just the other way round, my son isnt school age but eats better at lunch then dinner. So if i could (we all eat the same together at the table every night) he would have dinner at lunch time and lunch at dinner time.
I dont see a problem with it, and dont see why its anyones business really.

I had a bacon and egg batch this morning - it was not a sandwich as that needs sliced bread and I had a batch/roll with the bacon and egg inside