Am I being the difficult parent?

[The3]

Dc came home with a sheet to record her diet and exercise over the course of a week, plus a box each day to fill in to say whether it was a good day or not.

I felt uncomfortable about this - I don’t think a primary school aged child should be focussing on diet, or on exercise as something in itself rather than as a normal part of play.

For context, she has a healthy BMI. There might be one or two kids in the entire school who are overweight, but most kids are very healthy. She is in Y2 and I don’t want her to pick up on “x is healthy” or “y is unhealthy” - I just want her to enjoy food and play and not think about it very much at this age.

AIBU to send a polite note to the teacher saying I don’t want her to do this homework?

“Good” and “ bad” mean different things to a 7 year old than someone who goes to Weightwatchers or similar!

A child who eats a chocolate biscuit isn’t bad. Are they going to explain that?

I have a sister and a sister in law with eating disorders. They were fed, excuse the pun, this sort of information.

Eating “whatever you want” doesn’t mean eating unhealthily! My son’s favourite food at the moment is spinach!

The OP hasn’t said their objection is to learning about a healthy diet. It is equating it with good and bad that is the issue.

It was by birthday and I ate cake.
Good day surely?

Nobody at any age should be feeling it was a bad day if they had birthday cake.
Or if they are ill and can’t exercise.

The good & bad thing is the issue here (for me anyhow). Younger kids don't get it like we do; cheese is bad, salad is good. Very black & white, no in between, no moderation. It sucks

My sister in law ate ice cream (on doctor’s orders) and didn’t go and vomit it back up. Good day!

But it doesn't say 'good food' or 'bad food' does it? It quite correctly says 'good day' or 'bad day'. This reinforcing everything in moderation, not the opposite.
So;
Porridge, apple, egg sandwich, banana, spag bol, cake = good day (even with cake in it)
Pizza, mcds, cakes, coke, orange = bad day (even with orange in it)

I think this activity would be fine for a secondary aged child, where the kid may be buying crisps on the way to school, or perhaps buying their own lunch, but for a child in KS1 who basically has no choice over the food they’re given (other than “apple or banana” sort of thing) can’t see how it will help dd and can see the possibility of her getting hang-ups about food and exercise she doesn’t have at the moment.

But who is deciding whether it is s good day (for them) or a bad day?

Will it be marked as wrong if the teacher doesn’t agree?

It’s still turning food into a bigger issue than it needs to be in terms of right and wrong.

Yes I agree, it is appropriate for older children who have more choices.

No no no no no no!

Of course educate kids about the importance of a balanced diet and exercise, but fuck the food/exercise diary. I would be that difficult parent...

My dd is also y2, and we do, together count up that's she's had her five a day, some protein, some carb, some dairy. Not obsessively, but I do think it's a good thing for her to get in the hang of.

YANBU. Healthy is not healthy for everyone. If DS1 had stuck to so-called healthy foods as a child, he would have starved to death. Literally.

When he was at primary school, they introduced colour coded trays at lunchtime. The red tray was the "healthy" tray, and had a cartoon clown on it. I really had to drum into DS1 that he must never pick the red tray. He should have pizza, chips, cake, anything high-fat. Luckily, the staff kept an eye on him too.

Yeah be interested to see how the school dealt with the definition of good day/bad day.
'Special treat today, had pizza hut for lunch' - ah shit, teacher has labelled that bad day cos i ate too much pizza.

Too much too young

And for info, dd had a brioche and a bowl of porridge with raisins this morning, then jacket potato with tuna, carrots and peas for lunch, followed by fruit crumble and custard, then a biscuit after school, then a slice of whole meal toast with cheese, and an apple for dinner. She ran around like a mad thing, played lego and went on the swing. I’m not sure she’d recognise the “exercise” though.

YANBU
There are far better ways to educate children about healthy choices!
I wouldn’t fill that in.

In a perfectly innocently done healthy eating lesson at school the message “too much sugar is bad for you” was given - cue me finding ds reading the labels of food and not eating things that has sugar in.

As pp said “healthy” isn’t the same for everyone and schools do need to be exceptionally careful. I get the massive need to tackle obesity but they need to make sure they don’t create the opposite problem in the process

I think this is a poor way to teach the kids about healthy eating.

My DD got one of those paper plates, and so they divided it up into the right proportions for all the food groups, made little food things out of cardboard etc. and stuck them on. It taught them about balanced diets and was a fun arty project as well.

Having kids meticulously mark down what they're eating, how much they're exercising and whether this was "good" or "bad" just spells out trouble. There must be better ways to do so than this.

I'd contact the school and say you're uncomfortable with the homework - and tell them why. Worst case scenario you're the "precious" mum in some thoughtless schoolteacher's eyes; best you stop a debilitating pattern starting up in your DD's life.

I'd imagine Year 2 is a bit young, but with a Year 6 class this could really play on some food issues already there. Shocking lack of thought on the part of the school.

I don't think you're being difficult... I have heard of kids, often ones already fussy about eating, getting really worried and even pickier about food after doing stuff like this. As you said, kids can be really binary - they may not understand that 'don't eat much of this' doesn't mean the same as 'if you eat any of this, you will get ill'.

Oh you could really have fun with this!

Question the science behind the focus on Sat Fats in the PHE eatwell plate, it’s based on bad science and the people —dinosaurs— hanging around at the top not wanting to change it.

Question the meaning of “good” I mean “Rice” is good but the food chain to get it here has links to human slavery. Avacodo is “good” but is linked to Mexican dug cartels.

Was the meat British and to a high welfare standard? Or farmed intensively somewhere else in the EU?

Was the “almond” milk alternative count as “good or bad” because of the sugar content? Or was the potato you ate “good” because it had the skin on or “bad” because you burnt it and the acrylamides created are linked to cancer?
Was the cheese “good because of the high natural nutrients? Or “bad” because of the salt content.

Fill them write questions by everything!

One thing I’ve noticed between me and my sister’s households is that in our house food isn’t an issue. It’s nutrition, it’s fun to cook and eat together, and then it’s done.

In my sister’s household, food is the main topic of conversation, food is “good” or “bad”, eating is a guilty pastime, she could tell you in detail (and often does) what she has had to eat all week. She plans what she is going to eat tomorrow and talks about it the night before.

She had an eating disorder.

If the government want to tackle obesity then they need to invest in simple life skills in schools to promote scratch cooking with fresh ingredients.

The increase in processed food and destruction of cooking skills is what’s causing obesity and the tota focus on “5 a day” “eatwell plate” “fat/sugar” is evil is doing sweet fanny Adams to change education or behaviour.

I don't see the issue at all. My DC did a similar exercise at a similar age and are able to explain the importance of exercise, a balanced diet and understand what nutritious means. They also understand the concept of moderation.

It's a good lesson. These are all things we teach in our home but good to compound it at school and the fact is that not all children are learning this at home so it's an important lesson for the general curriculum.

Any other teachers cringing at the twinkl logo?

Twinkl is a teaching resource website which has grown enormously in the last few years. It has some brilliant resources out there, but the odd thing on there is just terrible - like this. It great when filtered through and carefully chosen to fit the lesson. It looks like your DD's teacher has stormed through, downloaded the "Year 2 Healthy Eating' Topic pack and whacked out 30 copies for homework without thinking or really checking.

She's in Y2, just don't do the homework. We only manage to do Y2 homework around once every 3 weeks or so, no drama, it doesn't matter.

(Actually this is precisely the kind of homework my Y2 would love to do, but that is beside the point)

I get why you are concerned but it maybe that this is a "Health" week project at the school. They could just be getting the children to look at what they eat and what exercise they do. Are all the class doing this or are you concerned you child has been picked out? Also it might be good to follow through with this just to give you a picture of how healthy your diet is! It could be a life changer for all of you.