to not get this about pack lunches..

[Butterflykissess]

son today was told in school he is not allowed to eat oreos at lunch time. as they are "chocolate." its hardly a flaming mars bar! and considering on the school menu os chocolate cake, ice cream etc. aibu to think ots ridiculous?

Schools in the UK are shocking. Rather than target lack of exercise they target kids having a bit of chocolate. I am preparing myself for some battles when my kids is old enough to go to school as no way will they tell me what he can and cannot eat. Madness

I changed my dd to packed lunches to a) save money and b) because I couldn't see how she was getting her 5 a day (with just one veg portion in the school dinner and crap for dessert). However her school is clearly v lax as while I ensure she has a wholemeal sandwich (Philly and grated carrot), cucumber sticks and hummus, some baby tomatoes, organic bio yoghurt and a piece of fruit .....They seem to turn a blind eye to her packet of crisps and mini KitKat!!!

Schools in the uk are not shocking - they are asking parents to keep the treats for home, to send in an actual meal, to be eaten at lunch time, not snack food.

YANBU OP. It is ridiculous. The lunchbox police at DS2's primary once sent a note home because his fairly healthy homemade flapjack had a drizzle of chocolate on it. It was a drizzle of chocolate ffs, not 20 Silkcut & a pack of lard!

What makes me laugh is the puddings offered at school dinner- heavy on the chocolate sponge etc.

Schools in the UK are shocking. Rather than target lack of exercise they target kids having a bit of chocolate.

Fact: the obesity crisis is down to what they eat, not 'lack of exercise'.

Fact: children are at school for around 6-7 hours, maximum 190 days per year. During that time, they are expected to cover the National Curriculum such that they can 'pass' national tests. At most, they can do 2 hours of PE per week.

Fact: lack of exercise is therefore mostly related to lack of activity during the hours they are NOT at school - i.e. when at home. Your kid doesn't move enough? YOUR responsibility, NOT the people charged with teaching her/him to read and write.

It’s one of my gripes too OP. My youngest willl not eat any fruit or veg (and believe me she does try!!) so her lunch consists of ham sandwich, 2 cocktail sausages and small pack of breadsticks. Occasionally she’ll take a yogurt. They won’t even allow them a pack of baked crisps.
But on school lunch they can have fish, chips and chocolate cake!!

How many mums commenting on here have actually seen the food they serve at lunch time do you all go in and inspect evey lunch time! They may have sponge cake but there are also yogurts, and fruit! I think you would be surprised how many choose fruit and there is no chocolate cake it's beetroot.

I don't inspect at lunchtime but I have seen the menus. My dd didn't like it because it was too stodgy.

this all got worse when this health food nutterism came to be.when we were younger we had the cornflake cake.the dodgy drumsticks and pizzas.but we also had the fruit.and sandwhiches.we chose what we wanted and were taught balance.we new at home we would have cooked meal and mum and dad had healthy attitudes around food not spreading food fears or phobias.food was just food all good stuff.so it never entered our minds it wasn't obsessed over.
same for many others my age.you sat down more.you cooked more.you enjoyed the food culture lots more.it created memories it created skill and many moments in time centred around good food.
people enjoyed it
nowadays there is such a lack of balance.
increase in body shaming
increase in fad diet
increase in food shaming and labeling as good or bad.
increase in not letting our kids eat bloody shitty lunch knowing they would grow to make good choices because we taught them well and didn't make it a dam focus,another fear in their lives to contend with therefore they ate more of what was needed and wanted not this reginmented crap that's around now.with so many rules and dos and don't and pressure.
I hate what food has become
I hate how linked it is to kids thoughts on themselves.

I understand why they are banned, and they are both chocolate and sweets. But I don't think chocolate cake should be on the menu either, but if it's homemade then it will have less processed baddies in it than Oreos

So many children live in places where it's not safe to get out and run around, though, Caribou. Or they have to go to a CM after school, or to an after school club. When the majority of parents work and the majority of school age children are not going straight home where they can either play with siblings or be available for friends calling around to play, a situation develops where many children spend many solitary hours after school. In addition, many do not have a garden, or access to a leisure facility (or the wherewithal to pay for same).

If schools are serious about health they need to schedule PE more than 2 hours a week.

And believe it or not, there are millions of children who are very picky. I was very lucky that my very picky children would eat a slice of deli ham or turkey in a whole wheat sandwich. I felt that they were getting a little nutrition along with nitrates, nitrites, and goodness knows what else goes into your average slice of American deli meat. There were children who wold only eat white bread and the substance known as 'American cheese'.

I was also lucky that my DCs' school was not required to police lunchboxes, that the school ran a very well subscribed extra curricular sports programme - cross country running in August-September, followed by co-ed soccer in September-October, followed by basketball from October to the end of March, with volleyball after that until the end of May. Most children played at least one sport. In high school they had PE every day for 50 mins.

Caribou58 I have never said its only up to the school to make sure that kids exercise! It's parents as well. Where I come from we had 6 hours of PE a week plus national curriculum... A lot tougher curriculum than kids have over here. We also are sweets and amazing how no-one was overweight let alone obese! Out of 400 kids at my school there was a handful of kids with slightly higher weight than normal, and not a single child obese. That's down to lots of exercise and healthy dinners. Guess what we had a cake at home every single day! It's just what we do.

As to the government I meant that if kids want to do additional sports here it's very expensive ! So rather than puniahijg kids for having sweets maybe they could provide more local sport areas and makes streets safer so kids can play outside again without parents worrying about kidnapping or stabbings ?

Excellent post, Kateandme.

I challenged my dds school when they pulled this shit. Firstly, there was no message home, just a dinner lady telling dd6 off at lunchtime. (dd perceived it as a telling off.) Secondly, she'd had a tuna and salad wrap, cherry tomatos and cucumber slices, some strawberries and grapes and a small, homemade, banana and chocolate chip muffin. Hardly a lunchbox full of crap. I emailed the school and asked that: a) all comments regarding dds lunch were made directly to me and b) for an explanation as to why dd couldnt have a homemade muffin, but hot dinner children could have a cookie with their fish and chips.
Im a teacher, I never want to be that parent who makes a fuss. However, the 'lunchbox police' really piss me off, especially when there is no parity with hot dinners. The head conceaded that the muffin was completely acceptable in the wider context of what dd had eaten for lunch.

oh thankyou mathanxiety it doesn't happen off hehe

I work in a primary school, Booie. There are always pudding choices, always, including cake, crumble, custard to pour over pudding options, as well as the fruit, yogurt, ice cream, jelly...

Of course obesity and overall weight is to do with diet AND exercise. By your own admission curriculum means children can only get a set amount of exercise in school time, likewise of the three meals we should eat per day only one is consumed in school.

There is a much larger debate on our eating habits as a society, which is clearly most worrying when it impacts children. How schools then expect to tackle eating habits and children’s diets by removing a biscuit from a lunch box is beyond me. Is this lunch box policing having any effect??

Personally I give my child a small treat in their lunch box, and will continue to do so. I feed my children, I pay for their food and I decide what they will eat. When people want to pay for my children’s food and prepare it then they can decide what they eat. Until then I’ll continue as I always have done. For what it’s worth neither my children nor anyone else in my family is overweight or have diet related issues.

I will always say that taste and eating habits are learned traits and obviously if people are giving their child packets of biscuits or large packets of crisps in their lunch boxes we can only imagine what’s being dished up for dinner.

I agree with kateandme we shouldn’t be making children have issues with food or weight at a primary school age. I would like to see more food preparation involving the children so that they can learn to appreciate cooking but these types of lessons seem to be culled in favour of more academic subjects, because of course schools and teachers are under so much pressure for children to achieve certain academic levels. Which was not the case when I was at school

Our school began thinking about reviewing packed lunches. The aim seemed to be a no to cake and chocolate biscuits.

We asked why when there are chocolate cookies and choc sponge etc served at school for pud.
I was told that these are made very healthily and are not high in sugar or fat. And far better for the children than cake from home.
I want their recipes then.

Though not great if sticking in artificial sweeteners

Don’t worry, when they get to big kids’ school there will be a plethora of crap on offer, overpriced at that. And yet they’re STLL ALIVE YEGADS..

This total obsession with “healthy eating” is so dangerous (recovered anorexic here). A healthy diet is a balanced diet with treats every so often. I’ve seen it with my own child - school demonises chips, crisps, chocolate, cake and sweets in their teaching and then kids see them as banned bad foods. It sends the message that they should feel guilty about eating them and sets them up for a lifelong bad relationship with food. I’m begging parents not to do this. Food is to be celebrated and enjoyed. Please please show kids that if you exercise and eat a range of different foods then that is a healthy way of life.

I've had kids at several different primary's and they vary so much. One was 'healthy eating' and no sweets, homemade cakes on birthdays, no chocolate bars and lunch boxes were policed. They could take fruit snacks for break but no wrappers. The packed lunch had to be a sandwich or roll or couscous or pasta, a small treat (either a chocolate biscuit or crisps NOT both 🙄) , a dairy product and fruit.
Another primary was not fussed what you sent in but you had to eat a dairy item first (?!) yoghurt or cheese. And cakes were taken in on birthdays.
And current primary regularly reward the kids with a chocolate and share cake outside on a sunny afternoon. They are allowed to eat something from their lunch bag at break and I recently discovered they could have biscuits for this purpose.
All very different.
I would be inclined to agree that the school dinner provided seems out of line with the ind of packed lunch they request?

Flowersandbirds thank you for posting. This is a balanced view on food.

I have tasted the ‘cakes’ and ‘biscuits’ the schools have for school dinner and I doubt they contain any sugar. They are usually bland and a bit like munching on cardboard. I was looking forward to the chocolate crunch and custard but neither could be described as a ‘sweet treat’!