To be miffed about ds getting 'told off' for the content of his packed lunch

[Squiffie]

DS had a packed lunch consisting of:

A chicken wrap
Banana
Grapes
Rice pudding
A bottle of very dilute squash

In addition to this he had 3 or 4 jelly sweets that I'd popped in with his grapes as a treat, for which he got 'told off' by a member of lunchtime staff. Am I seriously not allowed to choose the contents of his lunch box?!

Phantom I appreciate what you are saying about stats but I never rely on any of them tbh, I take what I see 1st hand. I also take into consideration the fact that children are constantly growing and before they have a growth spurt normally appear to put on quite a bit of weight, "puppy fat" which disappears as quick as it appears so screening and weighing does not cut it at all, especially the Y6 as the good old hormones are kicking in....

That reads as you can see the obesity but you make an excuse for it.

A child of healthy weight you should be able to see their ribs. You can see my sons ribs, he is a perfect weight yet people are forever saying he is "too skinny"

I saw a picture the other day of the children who played Agustus Gloop in both Charlie and the Chocolate factory films which really does highlight the difference is what we see as overweight now. The child from the original film would now be seen as normal weight

Absolutly squash everyday or else DD2 doesn't have a drink.

And

No point in fruit because it is wasted. DD2 loves fruit after school watching TV, but not if it's stopping her going out to play.

Kids in the 70s had dessert every day with every meal and didn't become obese

Those kids would be in their 40s now and probably one of the biggest age groups for obesity, other than the growing trend in children.

I don't understand the problem with the 'no sweets' rule.

There are so many wonderful fruits and veg which taste delicious and are great to snack on or have as part of a lunch box.

And by everyone sticking to the rule, they are helping those children who otherwise would hardly ever eat anything nutritious.

Really, what is the problem?

Why do we always need to bow to the lowest common denominator?! Why does the inability of a few to provide a balanced lunch have to mean everyone is ruled by an iron no sweets rule?! I should be about BALANCE not blanket ban of particular items.

Because otherwise the people who suffer aren't the ones who are unable to provide a balanced lunch, but the children who don't get one. Presumably the theory is that if they are at least getting 5 meals a week that are healthy and nutritious, hopefully they will cancel out the other 16 a little.

Part of the problem here is parents thinking it's ok to undermine the school when they have clear policies in place. It is not an unreasonable request to say "no sweets/chocolate" and it isn't hard to not put them in. Kids can have a pudding as a treat after dinner at tea time if the parents want them to have a treat.

I hate all this undermining schools by parents because it's not just lunchboxes, it's uniforms, lessons and teachers parents think it's perfectly ok to undermine. Saying "who is the parent here" is a lousy excuse - your children will go through life having to follow peoples polices and rules so starting them young on something as simple as "no sweets" is a good start. The amount of young people entering work places now thinking they can undermine the employer with uniform and work duties is awful and it all starts with parents undermining schools thus kids following suit which follows on into the workplace.

Just don't put sweets in the lunchbox.

Why no yogurts theOriginalPoster?

In any case it's a total waste of effort because the junk they can buy at secondary school totally undoes any good habits, they may have learned.

I know from a dieticians (sp) point of view unless you are overweight and trying to lose weight that low fat isn't needed/ is pointless as essentially there is nothing worth eating it low fat items. Certainly if you have a normal weight child low fat is actually a bad idea. (ED knowledge therefore numerous dietician advice). Ignoring the sweet issue unless staff are properly nutrition trained should they be passing comment?

WTAF IS WRONG WITH SQUASH??!!

NeverGetTheBestOfMe - the problem I see is that it has started with schools essentially undermining parents on the subjects of what children eat and what they wear:

• School heads with no dietetic qualifications and no knowledge of what the child eats at home setting themselves up as experts on what makes an appropriate packed lunch (while at the same time allowing any old crap in school meals)

• School heads deciding that it is more important that children are dressed uniformly than comfortably and that it is better for children to have ill-fitting but approved school shoes than comfortable shoes

Because of this I have lost a lot of respect for the heads at my DCs schools.

Rice pudding would be an 'offending item' wtaf?!

TheBuskersDog a play piece is what you have to eat at play time, also known as 'piece' or a 'piecey'. It must just be a Scottish thing, now I think about it...

I consider hot school meals a 'treat'' because they seem quite unhealthy and because I think the quality of the food is pretty poor compared to what I'd provide him. A lot of my DS's friends have things like sushi and brown rice and roasted vegetables for packed lunch. None of them have cooked lunches that the school provide because they would consider them unhealthy. You really don't see a lot of overweight children at DS's school, if anything it is the middle class obsession with children being 'skinny' that seems to dominate!

Worry it is not the head's decision. The directive comes from above.

I'm so glad our school doesn't expect us to be lunchbox police. I would flat out refuse to do so. We do have a healthy eating policy and we do have sip n crunch at morning tea which is fruit only, but a couple of small treats in a lunchbox at lunchtime is nothing to get worried about. It's not hard to speak privately to one parent about their child's lunchbox if they're only bringing junk food every day.

There is nothing wrong with squash, we all drank gallons of it as DCs.

It's just that someone feed utterly unrealistically huge doses of artificial sweeteners to rats and gave them cancer or something.

Oh and sugar is evil, well sugar in squash is evil, sugar in expensive, environmentally unfriendly twee cartons of fruit juice isn't.

It's a load of pretentious, unscientific clap trap!

Well I'm sorry but that is too far IamGluezilla

I wouldn't put sweets into the packed lunch box as they are not a lunch food. They bring nothing of nutrition and are just empty calories

I just can't understand kids not drinking water.
Maybe if you stop buying water flavoured crap and squash they will drink real water??????

Hope - DS would have become dehydrated before drinking water up until recently when he decided he liked it. A bit of dilute squash may not be ideal but its better than dehydration.

DS will drink water and mostly does - he just likes squash too so he's allowed it at mealtimes!

Kids are given too much of their way - sweet is addictive and they can't know this. Water is the drink that's available and they will drink it when thirsty. It's no problem here as I don't have squash and artificial sweetener drinks - easy to do.