AIBU - restrictive school snack policy, hungry child

[nemoni]

Our children's school (primary) has a policy of only allowing fruit and vegetables for snacks at school. Completely get the rationale - healthy eating, relatively easy to set parameters, no overly complex education needed around it etc.

The only problem is I have an active child - plays sport (on top of PE etc) 5 days a week and generally on the go. He comes home from school ravenously hungry, grumpy and tired. He's also going through a growth spurt. I'd like to be able to give him more carbohydrates, even protein, during the day as snacks, as I do on weekends, particularly on days he goes to after school sports sessions. I'm not asking for crisps/chocolate/jam sandwiches etc.

School so far saying no, no, no.

I think it's a cop out, it means they get to look like they're promoting healthy eating while not really promoting a balanced diet, kids are scoffing loads of dried fruit, and don't have access to a water fountain during school hours except at lunch. And don't get me started on school dinners.

Am I being unreasonable?! What parameters does your school set? How do they promote and support healthy eating? Thoughts welcome before I book a chat with the headteacher :)

Bonbonours - yep! My son won't eat bananas. However, my daughter will and she takes them in a banana case to avoid the mushy problem.

When did everything change, and why?

As a child there were never snacks between breakfast and lunch. Just not the done thing. And I am not aware of anyone suffering physically because of it. Neither were snacks given during school time when my adult children (mid to late 20s) were children. Again I was never aware of any problems to the children because of it.

Now, snacks are suddenly essential and as a foster parent I have some of the issues with the children that many of you have (children in foster care often have issues with food). But I am asking myself why are today's children so different to previous generations, who could go 4 to 5 hours without food with no problems. I've been pondering on this as I have read, and wondering what is so different with children's metabolisms now????

Barbarian sorry I do agree with what you are saying, that's why I said high protein. I also did mean less carbs/sugar but I wasn't clear. Which also means eating less very sugary fruit and increasing the consumption of berries, veg etc. I also don't mean constant grazing, a snack in morning and afternoon only.

My husband has sugar (x2) in his tea and by drinking 3 or 4 cups of tea and 2 apples a day he was well over his sugar intake. Everything else he ate was fresh food with hardly any sugar. He now has 1 cup of tea and switched to 2 clementines and is fine.

my middle one would rather have something else, but if a banana is all that is on offer, and they're hungry, they'll eat it.

Tell your child to eat their breakfast and they won't faint. Surely it's simple? Or am I being simplistic?

It's called common sense, I think it's in short supply nowadays!!
I'm with you.
I have two school age children, and they have fruit for breaktimes too. They're both extremely active, and never sit still. Neither have fallen down or expired from lack of food by only being allowed to eat bananas or apples between meals whilst at school.
I honestly don't get the obsession with constant snacking, some fruit between meals is fine.
As for they come in from school announcing they're starving, doesn't every child do that?! I know mine do!
So they get something like a bagel, cheese and breadsticks, toast and jam/peanut butter or whatever to put them on until teatime.

user148922078 Margaret Thatcher famously took away the morning snack in 1980 - yes that snack was milk, but even the tiny bottles were about double the calories of a banana.

It's called common sense, I think it's in short supply nowadays!!

Condescending, much? So how do you get a child to eat breakfast when they don't want to? I'm all ears.

mumzy yes, I have eaten a biscuit.

Never claimed it was to sustain me.

Margaret Thatcher famously took away the morning snack in 1980 - yes that snack was milk, but even the tiny bottles were about double the calories of a banana

I was at primary school just after milk was taken away, so did not have that either. As far as I am aware there were never any short term problems for children having to go between 9am and lunchtime without milk/snack. Same with my adult children.

But now with my foster children it seems such an issue. Children now seemingly have to have a snack (and schools of course vary on what is allowed) otherwise they will never manage between breakfast and lunch. Why?!

As a side issues one of my children had very severe ADHD and the sugar in fruit (yes including the sacred bananas) would have resulted in some pretty hyper behavior afterwards. I guess if he was in school now he would have had to go without...unless there is a fruit low in sugar and high in protein.

All very interesting.

Poor eating habits and eating crap don't kill you when you are a child. It's 40 years later when the diabetes, heart attacks etc kick in.

Allegretto you have a number of options.

1. Insist he has a drink and a couple of mouthfuls of something - anything - in the morning (and when he's used to that, slowly up the quantity). He may need to get up earlier to be ready to eat by breakfast time, in which case move bedtime earlier.SiL found the threat of that did wonders for DN' s appetite when she was skipping breakfast and feasting on shite mid morning.

1. Go the medical route. GP writes a letter saying he must eat X mid morning, then take that to school nurse and through her back to school.

allegretto,

The thing i have come back to this thread to wonder - if your DS jknows that there is nothing until lunchtime except fruit, and you were absolutely firm on that, would this be of any use in persuading him to eat breakfast?

DS was the world's most stubborn, and fussy, toddler - but he knew that if he refused to eat something at a mealtime, there was no more food until the next planned meal. After getting hungry, and discovering that wasn't particularly nice, he did work out that it was usually better to eat the food offered when it was offered.

i know that it can be tricky when a child is underweight and you are concerned about them, and then we are all guilty of pushing them to eat whenever, wherever they will. However, would a very no nonsense 'well, no food except fruit until lunchtime for you then' after offering him breakfast each day' be of any value?

What time does he eat at weekends, and can you push that gradually earlier week by week, by 10 or 15 minutes, so that it moves closer and closer to weekday breakfast time?

User tomatoes, avacado, cucumber or sweet pepper sticks might work - if they'll eat them.

Hi op we are kind of experiencing this. Dd1 (7) told me she is allowed to take a healthy snack at break time now and other kids have fruit winders. I said no problem and sent one every day. I asked her what else she was allowed she said just fruit so I sent I tub of grapes and the fruit winder. Dd got a bit stressed saying she was only allowed to eat one item not more and will only accept me sending one thing. I am baffled with this - dd1 is tall and skinny and will eat really healthy food without a fuss. I was surprised fruit winders were even allowed but more surprised that snacks are quantity restricted? It's just bizarre.

Is he eating is lunch at lunchtime? or is he rushing to play sport?

Just a thought OP.

Rubbish- fruit only rots teeth if you don't have good dental hygiene plus fruit contains fibre, vitamins and minerals and natural fructose, which is more easily digested. Fruit juice and dried fruit is a different story. I can't believe you're comparing refined sugar and fat with fruit.

Our school provides fruit for the children up until year 2. Sometimes the fruit they give out is only ONE strawberry or one cherry tomato which does noting to fill the gap! So I started putting a banana in my DDs book bag but her teacher refused to allow her to eat it because it wasn't what they had provided! Madness! Anyway, in terms of providing a very large lunch this is what I do but since my children have late and early lunch at school they don't always get time to eat all of the food!

if your DS jknows that there is nothing until lunchtime except fruit, and you were absolutely firm on that, would this be of any use in persuading him to eat breakfast?

He definitely knows. It's not a question of me being firm. He doesn't have a choice!

Agree that bananas are not a cure all!

I have a phobia of bananas so not only do I not eat them I can't have them in the house and won't allow my child to eat them!

People think it's strange but I can't help it

Can'tkeep it looks like they've integrated the registration for ofsted and food businesses - so you only register once for both but I'd expect inspections are still environmental health - but normally you do not need to register as a food business if you are only providing water, cold storage, cutlery etc and occasion stuff like birthday cake. It's possible that there's been a misunderstanding when the registrations were merged but even without food business registration packups should be fine.

Oh...I absolutely loathe bananas

Sladurch
This is what the Oral Health Foundation say you can do to prevent dental erosion.....

Have acidic food and drinks, and fizzy drinks, sodas and pops, just at mealtimes. This will reduce the number of acid attacks on your teeth.
Finish a meal with cheese or milk as this will help cancel out the acid.

Being an acidic food, fruit acid has an erosive effect.

Those people who have forgotten we used to snack..I grew up in the 70's in primary we had a tuck shop , you could buy toffee bars for 1p, snaps for 3p or crisps for 5p..If there was fruit I have blocked it out of my memory.

However yes I do think fruit is enough.

My DS had chocolate squares for years for breakfast as he wouldn't eat anything else. I am sure devil food on MN however it was fr better than nothing.

I do agree with the fruit and veg policy and yes I do think it helps the huge amount of overweight kids. My DS is low end of normal weight and I used to pay for milk for him but it interrupted his play time so didn't want it anymore.

Banana phobia - what do you mean you have a phobia of bananas? Genuinely intrigued by the way - my sister is frightened of cotton wool, she thinks it might 'squeak' at her.

I'll just throw this in to the pot! All schools have strict guidelines provided by the school food trust that they must adhere to when providing any form of meal or snack within schools. So a "fruit and veg only" snack rule is in place for good reason.

Fruit and veg other than bananas are available, if bananas aren't your thing . Probably best not to base a healthy eating policy on a niche phobia.