Are the packed lunches I provide really as outlandish as ds claims?

[notagainnellie]

I send some kind of wrap/sandwich with cheese spread, ham, tuna or hummus; a salad pot; sometimes a packet of Chedds or a cheddar stick; a piece of fruit or tub of fruit in Greek/natural yoghurt and a piece of malt loaf or, rarely, homemade muffin etc.

Occasionally I put treats like mini cheddars or - shock - something with chocolate on, but this would be a monthly, rather than weekly event. According to ds, no one has anything like it and he gets comments sometimes such as malt loaf being 'poo' or 'err' at his yoghurt pot. Everyone else has crisps, juice, something like a kitkat or mini roll, yoghurts in tubes and jam sandwiches are popular. Obviously kids will say that, but there is no policy on lunches at the school so it could well be true - I don't think he is making up the comments tbf.

I have looked into some of the items he has listed and am shocked by the salt and sugar content of them. I can't find any 'fun' type yoghurt that isn't full of crap and I can't bring myself to buy them for daily use. He's not that fussed and says he likes being 'different' , but I feel like he's going to get more and more bothered - he's 9 now and mentioning it more this year than ever before.

I'm not that strict about food, but I just don't think a lot of this stuff is suitable for daily use. AIBU to keep his lunches as they are?

I actually don't know any children that are overweight - none even close in my son's class (yr 1) and no lunchbox rules.

YANBU op. I would give dd 1 item I considered to be a treat (malt loaf or a biscuit) for her lunchbox when she was on pack ups and the rest would be healthy. She would generally have a cheese or egg salad with a bread roll or pasta salad with some veggie sticks, fruit and greek yoghurt. All things she likes eating but it's hard when she wants things her friends have and they are often desserts that have more sugar in than the rest of the lunch combined! This is a school with a healthy lunchbox policy as well but aside from actual packets of sweets and fizzy pop they seem to allow anything. The school lunches are no better. They say so long as they provide the option of a piece of fruit instead of cake and custard then they are encouraging healthy eating. Now my kids love fruit but there aren't many 4 yr olds that would choose it over cake given the choice. I don't see the issue with only offering the healthy stuff. My kids eat healthily because that is the stuff I buy. If I said to them they could choose between porridge and a Twix for breakfast I doubt the school would be patting me o the back for encouraging healthy eating!

No they don't need chocolate or crisps, but a handful of such a couple of times a week is not going to make a fat kid. It makes a kid who can self-regulate, enjoy sugar amongst other things, and not obsess about sweets.

Yesterday my ds stopped halfway through a bag of mini cheddars bought as a treat to have with a DVD, and was happy with the alternative of an apple, so I'm quite happy with this approach.

Satsuki overweight kids don't look overweight because so many are these days. That's half the problem that it's become normalised. If you look at a child and they look particularly overweight they are more likely obese. I'd say around half the kids in most classes are slightly over a healthy weight but they look completely normal sized in comparison to their peers. Children who are a healthy weight are the ones that look skinny these days but would have looked perfectly normal a few decades ago when kids ate properly and played outside.

I love these type of threads. The disingenuity is palpable.

This. A million times.

I'd say around half the kids in most classes are slightly over a healthy weight but they look completely normal sized in comparison to their peers. Children who are a healthy weight are the ones that look skinny these days

This
Giving kids too much choice doesn't enable them to make good choices, it tends to overwhelm them. Many kids will eat the sweet easy to eat stuff rather than the healthy stuff.
Just because they are not overweight now means nothing. I do think parents worry about their child not having the same as other kids and about them not having enough choices when they don't have to.

I'm surprised so many mothers make their DCs lunches.
Mine made own lunch from age of about 8 from stuff (suitable and healthy) that I bought and put in the lunch cupboard. I was around to see what was going in the box and had no worries and knew the lunch was more likely to be eaten. Good to encourage independence . No trouble with weight issues at all down to present day

10 year old girl 1600 - 2000 calories

sedentary 40 year old woman 1700 or up to 500 calories less if trying to lose weight

No, not entirely mad

I am a healthy weight and always have been. So are my children and my husband. But I do not know what this looks like. Ok.

I'm not saying it isn't a problem, but it's not a problem everywhere. It isn't.

I grew up in a much less affluent area than I do now, there were a lot more overweight kids back when we all 'ate properly'. Parents I know take a lot more care and interest in what their kids eat and how active they are than previously.

The overweight people I know now either had awful, unrestricted access to whatever rubbish they wanted, or awful, completely restricted access to sugar. I take the middle road. Fixating on food and making it such a loaded topic is a problem in itself.

Oh yes I get all my medical
Advice from live strong

My DS wasn't/isn't a fussy eater but refused school lunches from P1. He always had a sandwich or wrap in his packed lunch but chose the nibbles which were usually strawberries or blackberries, tomatoes, black olives and pickled onions! (All in wee bags not jars of). Occasionally he'd ask for hummus and pitta bread aswell.

I have a terrible relationship with food. I put a lot of it down to having a restricted diet as a child. Now I am an adult, I tend to binge in secret on the things I like but was rarely allowed as a child. I am trying to stop but finding it really hard.

DS14 has:
a drink of squash (goes in frozen in a drinks pack to keep everything else cold)
2 x sandwiches on either large muffins, sourdough, or torpedo rolls - ham, cheese, corned beef, chicken.
an apple
pack of crisps.

He's 6ft and incredibly active, but his school doesn't have anywhere for the packed lunch kids to sit so he needs forkless hand food.

Satsuki if you live in a particularly affluent area then your experience isn't typical. 1/5 of kids leaving primary scool nationally aren't just overweight but obese. I find it hard to believe that anyone doesn't know a single overweight child but if you live in a very affluent area or have a small social circle I guess it is possible. The point I am making is that it is difficult to tell by looking at a child if they are overweight unless they are vastly overweight. Just look at the threads on here and stories in the papers where parents are aghast that the school has sent them a letter saying their child has an unhealthy bmi. Then you look at the pictures and they are clearly slightly overweight (even though they may well be slimmer than most of their peers). Child obesity is a massive problem.

Matching it is hard to find any detail on calories by age, gender and lifestyle on line, hence the choice of link, but it is a fact that calorific requirements drop every decade and a sedentary adult female in her 40s does not in fact need many calories - not as many as she did in her 20s, and if she was a sporty active pre teen and is now inactive and carrying any extra weight it is entirely realistic not to need as many in her 40s as pre teens and teens.

Teenagers most certainly need more food than their mothers in many cases, except where the teen is unusually sedentary and the adult active.

There is no automatic rule that because you eat x and y for lunch school aged children should eat less that you.

It's nonsense of course that children "all ate properly" 20/30/40 years ago.

I remember morning break at primary school in the late 70s and early 80s and being the only child sent with fruit not a Club or Finger of Fudge or Penguin or Milky Way or sometimes even more substantial chocolate bar - particularly remember cream egg envy in the run up to Easter.

My dd has:
A ham and cheese or tuna wrap or sandwich on wholemeal bread.
Cucumber and cherry tomatoes
A small chunk of cheddar
A fruit smoothie
Then either; crisps, mini cheddars, yoghurt or, occasionally a small portion of left over cake. It's about balance. There is no point in her packed lunch being perfect but then her eating crap for the rest of the day. Dd has weetabix and a banana for breakfast and then a normal dinner. Pasta bolognaise is a favourite, or roast dinner etc. I try to make sure she has at least two portions of veg with dinner. In the evening she will have something from her treat box. A fredo or yoghurt or a couple of chocolate biscuits. I want my kids to go with up with a realistic attitude towards food. We follow the 80/20 rule as a family.

I think it's a bit of a myth that children must be skinny with ribs sticking out otherwise they are overweight. I remember once on a thread about children's diet someone posted a link to an NHS page that had pictures of healthy body shapes. There was quite a variety - it was like a continuum thing and the top few were not what you would call skinny, but were still healthy.

I probably haven't explained it well, but I'd love to see it again as so many people on here state as fact that children must be like rakes. (Mine are, btw).

Sandwich (ham & cheese bagel/ tuna), some sort of vegetable sticks, crisps, a piece of fruit or a small yoghurt and maybe an oat bar.

He only has packed lunch on a Wednesday.

My DC still laugh about the healthy "crisps"
I used to buy at the health food shop. They were called hedgehog crisps low salt low everything. No one would swap for the monster munch they really wanted. Taking them shopping was a nightmare PLEASE can we have sugar puffs/white bread/ coco pops. My youngest told a friend who was an only child that Mum didn't have time to make a lunch box so friend's mother used to pack extra (junk) for my DC but I only found that out years later! Now some of them are parents the pendulum has swung even further and everything has to be organic whilst I'm much more relaxed!

Well my ds is at the upper end of a healthy bmi and I am forever being told how slight/skinny he is. I do think kids (and people) are supposed to be lean when they are at their healthiest.

I think it's a bit of a myth that children must be skinny with ribs sticking out otherwise they are overweight

A 10 year olds ribs should be visible apparently.

I work in a school and have a dd on packed lunches she has a drink something savory sandwich, pasta, mini sausages. Then 3 other things fruit, yogurt, piece of cheese, small cake (we've baked today so she'll get a bunch tomorrow) crisps, hummus, chocolate bar, this seems to be the norm at our school

Your packed lunch sounds very healthy and well balanced. Perhaps the other parents should follow your example.

I think some people are far too obsessed with what their kids eat, it's bordering on disordered as there's so much anxiety about sugar in things.

As for finding Frubes "depressing" and being "shocked" at the level of sugar in a yoghurt... doesn't seem worth the time or energy, frankly.