to think this is NOT an unhealthy lunch

[ohhifruit]

DStS's teacher (he is in Junior school) pulled me aside after school to say his lunch was deemed 'an unhealthy lunch' and their first step was to give me a 'verbal warning' before writing to me. She even said 'I'm sure you can understand why we think this.'

This is what he had -

• Small pot of home made hummus
• Large wholemeal pitta cut into strips
• A hardboiled egg
• A handful of celery sticks
• A handful of carrot sticks
• A small pot of raisins
• Matchbox sized lump of chedder (which he saved to eat on the way home)
• Satusuma
• Small yoghurt

We've given him sandwiches and he never touches them but dippy types of food are always eaten and he reports how much he enjoys them. He isn't messy, almost to a fault, so I can't see them being bothered about a 'bits and bobs' lunch making a mess.

Is this unhealthy? I am racking my mind to figure out how on earth this is unhealthy? She wouldn't specify, I expect because it wasn't her who saw his lunch but rather it was reported back via lunch time staff.
I feel really annoyed to be told off by the teacher, she was pretty sneery and it wasn't until I got home I realised I should have asked to speak to the head.

Is it a Christian school?

I did hear that God hates faggots, but I think that's quite an extreme point of view.

Does god hate Brains faggots?

Sounds gross but nothing that sounds worthy of a "verbal warning"

Jobs worth

Thanks for the update.
Can we muster a mumsnet campaign to end the fanatical lunchbox inspection craze?
I mean, ok. If it's a can of coke and a bag of cold chips... But the policing and rules I hear about on here seem to be utter madness!

I agree - and the campaign needs also to focus on setting out guidelines that are actually based on proper nutritional information, as it applies to children - because children's needs are different.

For example, children need fat in their diet, to help develop their nervous systems - the brain consists of at least 60% fat - as well as needing fat to enable the absorption of some vitamins (everyone needs a proportion of fat in their diet for this). Therefore, insisting on all low fat products is not a good thing.

Glad to see the update, and that common sense did prevail in the end.

I would support the idea of a campaign to kick the lunchbox snoopers into the long grass too. I hate food police in all their forms (though I always respect people's actual dietary needs based on allergies or medical conditions).

Most parents can be trusted to know how and what to feed their children ffs.

This is absolutely fucking outrageous!

Faggotgate

I think spreading the healthy eating message in schools is a good thing.
I think it's good to encourage eating a balanced diet.
But
I don't think it's reasonable for the contents of children's lunchboxes to be scrutinised in this way.
The knowledge of the lunchbox police appears to be quite limited at best.
And it's so arbitrary and narrow. There's no consideration about what a child might have eaten for supper or breakfast.
And no thought about reasonable home economics. If you have some left over chocolate cake from the weekend it makes sense to put that in a lunchbox.
With some rules you'd have to throw it away or eat it for breakfast.
Sledgehammer to open a Terry's chocolate orange.

Well, for most children eating vegetables and fruit every day and not eating sweets every day would be a reasonable message.
Reminding people about the importance of vitamin D

Simple stuff.
Not promising to tell people every last thing they should eat.

Pretty much everything has its place in an overall balanced diet. Not too much of any one thing, but no particular food banned altogether.

Fruit and veg are important, as are carbohydrates. Quick energy givers such as small amounts of chocolate also have their place (and a little of what you fancy does no harm). Growing children need more fat in their diet, so full fat yogurts and whole milk are good. Certain people with some medical conditions can actually need a fairly high fat diet (I think cystic fibrosis is one of those conditions), so the low fat mantra does not apply to them. Are they being told their lunchboxes are unhealthy?? They may be just tailored to the individual child's needs instead.

The food police zealots ignore a lot of that though.

Faggots just make me think of maggots

Which are probably quite nutritious...

Does the school serve burgers? Surely burgers are just flat faggots.

WTF's a faggot? (thick emoticon)
I know it's something meaty. That's about the extent of my knowledge got a strict vegetarian husband and I'm only a light meat eater myself

I wouldnt put faggots in a lunch box but could think of much worse things.

are my dc the only ones who go to schools where you can put whatever you like in a lunch box?

No, my children don't go to that type of school and neither do 5 or 6 friends children who go to different schools

Might be stricter depending on county

yes, but we got a NHS change4life leaflet saying swop
*drinks for diet drinks (err, no milk and water, and personally, full sugar not aspartamine for me and the kids)

• full fat dairy for low fat dairy. err no. Full fat here (except maybe skimmed milk, but by childs requiremtns not straight everyone). Low fat yoghurts etc are stuffed with sugar.

I can't remember the others but they were equally stupid. I binned the leaflet, and didn't bother getting the vouchers they were offering.....

Same here addicted. DD brought home the leaflet in her book bag, I let her read the recipe bit but I said "don't read the first page as they have made lots of mistakes!"

Change4life is specifically for people who want to lose weight or to help their children lose weight. The advice needs to be looked at in that context.

True, but the advice still isn't great - for example drinking artificially sweetened drinks can cause more sugar cravings, so you end up eating more afterwards anyway. And a lot of 'low fat' versions of food are full of added crap (including sugar/sweeteners) and they don't make you feel full like the 'proper' versions do.

Change4Life need to sort out their marketing strategy then, if it's supposed to be aimed at people wanting to lose weight. It comes across as just a general "healthy eating" policy, very much aimed at children with leaflets in bookbags etc, but what they are recommending is not suitable for children at all.