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?

That list of partners is horrifying! This really isn't about primary kids misinterpreting the message, it's about the message itself being wrong. But telling your kids that their school is teaching them nonsense - hardly a great position for parents to be in.

The trouble with skimmed milk is that - as well as being lower in fat - it is also lower in calcium. Growing kids need all the calcium they can get in their diets.

And - it's no good telling people to use low-fat alternatives if they feed their children a breakfast of weetabix and skimmed milk, with three heaped tablespoons of sugar on it (as we saw the family on the next table to us doing, when we were on holiday last year). A right gross monstrous bunch of salad-dodging giant lumps of blubber they were too!

Skimmed milk is higher in calcium than full fat milk iirc.

We've had this too and I got very cross at being told all fat was wrong by my 5 year-old, which is inaccurate, and that certain food was "bad".

if you remove all the fat from milk you also remove all the fat soluable vitamins.

If you are eating a balanced diet it is not calcium you will be short of. Magnesium perhaps but not calcium. In order to utilise calcium the body needs plenty of magnesium. Often we are advised to eat more calcium, when what we actually need to do is eat more magnesium rich foods.

Ds1 did a food course sort of thing in y2 with one of the parents who was a dietitian. It was brilliant. He learned what was a protein, carb etc and the value of different fats and where they are found. She was an expert and the quality of teaching her expertise gave made all the difference. He also learned about portion sizes and they talked about feeling full.

As said up thread, speak straight to the school. If it's the case that they've taught this badly they need to know.

The change4life programme is a load of bollocks. I have two very skinny kids, they don't need to eat low fat anything. They could do with less bloody sugar being fed to them at school though....so they are not allowed to bring in a piece of cheese for their break or a bit of cooked meat but the teacher can give them sweets every week and there's someone's birthday once or twice a week, cake sales every other week, random cakes are given out frequently, puddings everyday with school dinners - the whole meddling with kids diets is a complete farce!

Taxi

"A right gross monstrous bunch of salad-dodging giant lumps of blubber they were too!"

what an absolutely vile thing to say about other people.

i know when my 8yo was doing the healthy eating thing in school last year i ended up having to speak to his teacher.

He's got SN and his diet is very, very restricted, but the foods he does eat are well thought out and balanced to make sure he's getting all the right nutrients out of the little he DOES eat.

unfortunately, those include foods that the 'healthy eating' brigade disapprove of.. after 3 different foods were suddenly refused on the grounds 'my teacher said they're bad for me' we had to go in and make it VERY clear that they were not to describe any food as 'bad' around him because every single calorie he eats is vital to his health and wellbeing.

YANBU. This fucks me off so much. I hate the idea that low-fat shit with sweeteners in is presented as healthy. There was a great line from that book about good eating and stuff your grandmother would have recognised:

Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

It's not rocket science, now, is it?

Ds1 did a food course sort of thing in y2 with one of the parents who was a dietitian. It was brilliant. He learned what was a protein, carb etc and the value of different fats and where they are found. She was an expert and the quality of teaching her expertise gave made all the difference. He also learned about portion sizes and they talked about feeling full.

I want this for my children. Start the healthy habits early!

I was extremely annoyed when my underweight DS with multiple food allergies came home saying he was healthy because he is thin. I'd prefer they taught kids that it was important to be on the healthy weight range for their height. Not fat is bad, thin is good!

Dc was measured as underweight last year, the letter from the school suggested if I was concerned I should visit their website where I only found advice for overweight children - good job I wasnt too concerned - dd is rarely ill...that to me is a good enough sign of health.

Taxi are you kidding me?

I hate these groups, well actually I despise them. They decide on a strategy and peddle it to the ends of the earth. They often don't have facts to back up what they are saying, base their stuff on research which is out of date, and aren't into the idea of individualism.

You wait until your children go to secondary and get 'blitz' days, where one glass of wine a week (with Sunday lunch) is labelled binge drinking, the ignorant nonsense they come out with on sex ed and on drugs; it is shameful.

This over involvement of schools drives me nuts. There may be a tiny percentage who truly derive any benefit from this micro managing of their lives but I somehow doubt it. Why must the majority of sensible people be involved? How much money do they spend on these projects?

Am starting to feel like I'm not the authority on my family with this meddling...

trixymalixy Thu 30-Oct-14 20:39:33

Skimmed milk is higher in calcium than full fat milk iirc.

Since full fat milk is 4% fat, that difference will be less than 5% - or a mouthful, then.

Totally agree OP. much of the advice is very outdated.

My kids are also slight of build and fit. I also use full fat dairy and butter. Try to avoid processed stuff. I hate when I hear advice about "low fat dairy" and "sugar free squash".

You should see the advice given out by diabetic clinics...

I just ignore, ignore and make my own mind up.

YANBU, my DD hasn't got to primary school yet but I have heard stories from other mums about it that would piss any parent off! The BMI calculation was designed during the 1830s when people's body types were enormously different to what they are now! It doesn't take into account muscle weight, boob weight (for grown women!), etc, so somebody who is 'skinny fat' could be told they're healthy and a body builder could be told they're overweight!
Healthy eating should be taught be encouraging moderation and real food, not this low fat dairy rubbish and no chips ever.

I think the problem is even less that parents with a good grasp of these issues are being undermined than that kids who aren't experiencing such good parental guidance are only in receipt of rather inaccurate messages from school.

That's very true oury've. Then these kids grow up and the medical world stops mentioning nutrition but starts dishing out statins, despite the cholesetorl hypothesis being proven as bunk.

Part of the problem is also that doctors aren't really trained in nutrition when studying. Plus, as we know, the food companies are so corrupt in the first place.

With the huge funding crisis in the NHS and the massive cost of type 2 diabetes, you would think it was time government said "enough".

Agree completely Roonerspism. It's sadly predictable though that pharma sponsored medical education neglects the very crucial building blocks of health, nutrition.