to be furious with the 'healthy eating' advice being given to primary age children?

[unlucky83]

DD2 (7) came home with a slip asking for permission to calculate their BMI and to contact the parents if there are any concerns. All part of a group coming into the school talking about healthy eating etc with them. In general I don't think it is a bad idea...

DD2 is 'normal to skinny', you can see her ribs - I have no concerns. She eats relatively well - I don't buy fizzy juice, biscuits, crisp etc -she gets them occasionally as treats. She gets junk food/take away at the most every 3 weeks or so. I don't buy ready meals etc. I do buy cereals but not the really high sugar ones (cocoa pops etc). The worst thing is she probably eats too much fruit (as in not enough veg) - she'll only eat carrots, peas and sweetcorn at the moment...
I don't buy anything that has been tampered with - so don't buy 'fat free' things, or no added sugar things. I don't buy yoghurt in tubes, cheese strings etc... We have real (block) butter but in moderation -I don't buy 'spreadable' and definitely not any 'healthy eating' spreads...I agree in principle with 'if your grandmother wouldn't recognise it don't eat it'

DP & I do have semi skimmed milk but I still give the DCs (eldest 13) mainly blue 'full fat' milk... over the years I have heard various bits of research that suggest that dairy fat may not be as bad for you as previously thought and may have some health benefits. Eg. a Harvard study basically found that people who didn't eat low fat dairy were less obese than those that did ...there was recent study linking the presence of diary fat to reduced risk of diabetes and of course all the stuff recently that fat may not be causing as many weight problems as sugar. It needs more research. If my DCs had were overweight I might rethink but at the moment I think they are fine with blue milk...
I had vaguely realised that the blue milk wasn't going down as fast as usual - DD2 makes her own cereal for breakfast and pours her own milk to drink. Then DD2 told me yesterday that I might as well stop buying it -she wasn't drinking it - it wasn't suitable for anyone over the age of 2! I was furious -it is one thing to get them to discuss things with their parents - and take some responsibility for themselves - but not to tell them what to do without parental input - especially if they DON'T have any weight issues.
Now I'm a bit - I had a bit of a rant and showed DD2 research online etc. This morning she said she can't wait for them to come into school - she is going to tell them they are wrong . (Partly I think because she was annoyed with them because apparently they wouldn't give her her number (BMI) - didn't tell any of them)
Just been talking with another parent in DDs class with an underweight child with food issues. Sees a paediatric dietician. (Refused to get them weighed - which is fair enough). At the moment they basically have to get calories in them anyway they can. That child has also told their parent they are not allowed to eat crisp and should only eat low fat food

In the whole of DD's school there are no obese children, maybe one or two slightly overweight - I do know that may not be the case everywhere .
So AIBU to think that they should not be telling a whole class - no matter what their weight - to eat 'healthily' ? And maybe encourage them to discuss their choices with their parent?

Oh I'm getting all ragey about this again!

When my child was in hospital, the food was all this low-fat rubbish full of asparatame and artificial sweetners. I ended up bringing in food from home. She was also underweight.

I don't know why parents get so angry and irate when their children misinterpret the healthy eating advice at school.

If they get something wrong, just talk to them and help to put it right.

Just the same as if they misunderstood something about history or geography.

I don't know where the anger and irritation comes from, just because the subject is about healthy eating and drinking.

Because Worra it has a lot more impact than DS insisting that Spain has the longest coastline of any European nation. All our family coming up with better alternatives cannot compete with this comment from Ms. Spanish Teacher.

Because a lot of the time they aren't misinterpreting it. Sometimes the advice is plain wrong.

Telling a child green milk is better for them than blue milk is wrong. Many children need the calories and they could all probably do with the extra vitamins which the fat helps them absorb.

because the advice is wrong, i got the change for life leaflet, and there were so many bits of bad advice.
Like telling you to buy low fat versions of your choices.
but the low fat versions are worse, if a food has too much fat the advice should be to eat less of it and more of something else, not swap it for something full of crap.

And healthy eating should be about being fit, being fit does not mean skinny, i was skinny my entire childhood, but was NEVER fit and healthy (couldn't run 100m at 11 years old)

And because it is for primary school children they make it very black and white, "fat bad, don't eat fat", well actually we need fat but we need the correct fats in the correct proportions.

Currently i need to lose 2 stone but never say that to my children i just comment on being fit to play with them.

So you put them right, just as if they'd learnt anything else wrongly.

I just don't get the angst when it comes to lessons about nutrition.

Unless some parents feel as though they're having a mirror held up to their unhealthy eating habits maybe?

I know when I used to tell my Mum how unhealthy smoking was (because I'd learned it in school), she used to get very uptight and angry because she was a smoker. I think she felt judged by the school.

food policing is necessary because so many people truly don't have any idea how to feed themselves or their kids. Would all the posters on this thread have any better ideas on how to improve the diets of kids who are fed the crap that everyone on here isn't feeding their kids? If so, please speak up and do something about it.

The change4life advice is not being misinterpreted I don't think. It strongly advocates choosing the 'low fat' version (including milk) and to go for the 'no added sugar' ie with artificial sweeteners options.

I thought it was very poor nutritional advice indeed for children and threw info in the bin. Hasn't stopped my son parroting it and thinking it must be right because it comes via school.

Worra, don't you think though that if so many children are 'misinterpreting' the message then there is something wrong with the way that message is being delivered?

My DS is only 1 year old so I've not encountered any of this yet but I'd pretty annoyed if my efforts to give him a healthy diet, and for him to understand what that is, were undermined by either factually incorrect information being given to him at school or correct information being given in such a way that it was leading to confusion.

If schools are teaching primary age children about nutrition then make it appropriate for their age.

to be fair, the change4life site doesn't advocate buying too much low-fat crap, it talks about not buying some of the fatty foods that no-one needs too much of.

it does however recommend reduced fat cheese (yuk!) and lower-fat greek yogurt, both bad ideas.

it does seem to be aimed at those who eat loads of crap as a lifestyle choice. The simple advice 'if it comes in a can and is fizzy, don't ever drink it' would make a big difference.

I wonder if this is connected with the thread the other day on a certain diet provider, who recommend low fat (20% sugar) pot snacks as opposed to the 'standard' 15% sugar ones? What happened to a sandwich and some veg?

Agree with you OP. Glad you and your children are challenging out of date ideas. Keep challenging - I would write to the school. The idea that fat makes you fat has been seriously challenged in recent years.
A "full fat" advocate here and am slim (apart from being preg)and my cholesterol is fine.
Wonder who is sponsoring this crap? Who stands to gain from even mentioning Coke? Surely kids shouldn't be drinking Coke often enough for it to matter?!
Fly the flag for fat!!! My DC will be having full fat milk for as long as he wants it. Even better he can eat all the double cream he wants. Unsalted butter sticks would be a great food for weaning . We cook in dripping and coconut oil and love it!!

Worra, don't you think though that if so many children are 'misinterpreting' the message then there is something wrong with the way that message is being delivered?

I've only heard of children of Mumsnetters occasionally misinterpreting the message, so to be fair I'm not sure if it's a particularly wide spread problem.

I'm chair of govs at a 950 pupil Primary school and to the best of my knowledge, it's not been a particular problem.

RAGE.

"Healthy" as an adjective describing food does my fucking nut. A lifestyle can be healthy, sure but it's meaningless in relation to individual foods.

DS(6) is being taught at home about nutrition and we distinguish between foods that nourish us and foods that just give us energy.

This came about because DH and I no-sugar. Explaining to a 6yo why he needs a different diet from his almost completely sedentary father needed more science than "apple good, burger bad".

Oven chips is right. Cutting back on fat and 'sugar swaps' are 2 of the '6 healthy behaviours' that change4life advocates.

I think the problem comes from the fact that C4L's original target was overweight adults who need to actively change their eating patterns to lose weight.

Whether the approach is right for that purpose is a separate debate. However, it's pretty obvious to me that C4L can't simply be applied as a heathy eating template for normal to underweight primary children. It doesn't make any sense.

I understand the need to educate and establish healthy eating patterns, but rolling this programme out for primary school kids with no thought or modification is a lazy and stupid policy.

It's the assigning morality to food that pisses me off. There is no good food and bad food ffs. All food is fine in moderation. It gives me the rage too. Yanbu.

What I and other posters are saying is that our children are not misinterpreting the message. The crappy 'aimed at overweight, sedentary adults who currently eat a crappy diet' advice IS the message.

The children are correctly reporting what they've been told as part of the Change4Life campaign.

Fabulous it isn't 'Max in the middle* - or C4L - I think it is just a local council thing but I might be wrong! (I'm in Scotland)
and Worra I'm not upset about a mirror being held up to my diet ...I'm upset they are telling them things that aren't right...or necessarily right - and pushing them towards processed crap...
Look at hydrogenated vegetable oils - developed primarily to turn vegetable oils into solid fat - for things like healthy cholestrol free spreads... turns out they have the opposite effect and so we don't do that anymore. Unsaturated fat is oil - in order for it not to be liquid at room temp it has been tampered with - even if it is something as 'harmless' as forcing it into an emulsion with water. I would rather they ate butter - which humans have been eating for hundreds of years - in moderation than something that has been played with!
More people drink semi skimmed milk now than ever before - obesity levels are still rising ...not blaming that on lower fat milk - things might be worse if it didn't exist - but it doesn't seem to be the solution to the problem -does it?
They just need to eat food that hasn't been messed around with too much in moderation, exercise and they will be fine ...

And I would be very surprised if you asked the vast majority of the population if they didn't know what foods (according to this anyway) are 'healthy' and which are not...
The problem is people choosing to eat the wrong foods...and partly to blame for that is supermarkets and manufacturers etc. (I walk into my local supermarket - in the doorway will be stacks of high calorie impulse buy foods - cakes etc - things that you probably didn't set out to buy, and if they weren't thrust under your nose wouldn't buy - so you spend more and you take them home and they are there, you can't let them go to waste - so you eat them - extra calories you don't need.)
Also the snack obsession - children can't go for more than an hour or two without eating. Family restaurants serving huge portions - so they seem good value for money ...etc etc And if we didn't eat so much processed crap most food manufacturers would go bust.

It is a lot more complicated than 'educating' primary school children about good and bad foods ...I think a better message would be exercise, moderation, portion size and only eating when you are hungry!
And to discuss it with their parents - if they don't know any better they will be educated too - if they do they can explain why they eat what the way they do...not let a 7 yo make that decision for themselves!
(Sorry - huge post - obviously I'm still feeling ranty !!)

YANBU
I wish primary schools would shut up about healthy eating.

It just reinforces all unhealthy foods are naughty, rebellious and a treat.

We all know what that means, come first day of walking to secondary school the cheap crap selling newsagent is laughing all the way to the bank.

If all the money spent on healthy eating advice in schools was spent on fun swimming groups, recreational trampolining sessions and non competitive sports clubs and gym sessions for all the teens who give up sport at 11, the nation would be vastly healthier.

I am happy with a school telling a whole class to eat healthily and giving correct advice on what that means. (I am with you OP in the "if your grandmother wouldn't recognise it..." school of thought).

I wouold not be happy with the school giving wrong and outdated advice on what is healthy, which your DD's school appears to have done.

Unfortunately since the advice changes very frequently, it's quite likely that any school who tries to do this will end up giving out of date advice.

YANBU it infuriates me too.

Got99Problems - You're not wrong. Here's a list of Change4life's current national partners:
www.nhs.uk/change4life/pages/national-partners-list.aspx

We had the same thing, ds thought you shouldn't eat fat ever that low fat/sugar substitutes were healthy and so on. He is incredibly fit and healthy but it has taken 3 years to begin to undo the damage caused by primary school healthy eating lessons. His bmi came out as overweight so they pushed the lesson home to him. At the time he did 6hrs of karate a week, rode his horse most days, did all the care for the horse, biked 20mins to school and back, was ribby and had a baby 6pack ffs.

All that aside pushing unhealthy substitutes and half baked ideas as gospel is damaging. If they taught sensible diet and positive body image I'd be right behind them! My dds got the same lessons but, luckily, were all far less predisposed to take anyone's word as gospel. I was called in because dd laughed when she was told she was overweight (she does the same with karate and horses etc). I laughed too.