Hauled into school because dd had no breakfast

[takeastand]

Got called into school as dd(13) felt unwell and it transpired she hadn't eaten. I don't encourage her to eat breakfast although I don't stop her - she rarely gets up early enough to eat it during the week. I honestly thought the school would be sensible about this but what an absolute waste of everyone's time. I thought once I explained that she wasn't neglected or malnourished we could go on our way. Instead a load of hand wringing, unsubstantiated and unscientific bollocks about how important breakfast is and how clearly this is the reason dd felt light headed, even though she hasn't eaten breakfast before school the entire five weeks and this is the first day she has felt unwell.

For context - she is overweight. I'm not going to force another 300-400 calories that she doesn't desire or need at the only point of the day that she doesn't seem to be starving hungry! I make her a cup of tea each morning, she drinks plenty of water. Her house is first for lunch so she eats at 12ish!

It's half term next week and I'm not sure whether I should say anything to the school tomorrow or just let it lie.

It’s worth reading the article to the end. You’ll see that the NHS advice is that they would NOT recommend missing breakfast. Extracts from the end of the article are attached.

Complaining about it being a safeguarding issue is pure naivety. From posters who have zero understanding of safeguarding.
Missing breakfast flags so many potential issues. So many families and children have been supported just by discovering this small fact. So many children saved from neglect or abuse. So please don’t comment on it being ridiculous.

Time and time again I’ve seen children being neglected and the child having no breakfast tends to be the first red flag.

Whether you like it or not, if a child skips breakfast it should be recorded immediately.

Abused and neglected children are almost certainly not eating breakfast.

People (including young people) who don't eat breakfast, aren't necessarily being abused.

Do you see the difference?

Not eating breakfast is one snapshot or indicator that surely contributes to a wider picture. It is meaningless on its on. It's quite clear this OP is not neglecting or abusing her daughter, so fixating on it is pointless.

You are being very unreasonable and potentially neglectful!
Previous post lostinlondon999 is spot on. It’s a red flag.
You’re child is over weight and not eating properly, she’s only 13.
You’re still her parent and responsible for her well being.
The fact you don’t like that someone has pulled you up on it is more the point.
She’s your daughter, she needs your help and support to ensure a future healthy lifestyle

@thedowager it is not our place to make that call, but the schools, and that’s exactly what they have done. They clearly have more concerns than just skipping breakfast.

This is a child who constantly misses breakfast, this is not a one off.

Reading all of OP’s comments, I personally find her use of language and her phrasing concerning.

Who walks into their child’s school and makes a joke about smoking a joint 😩

The dowager. Cave men’s life expectancy was 25, so it’s a good job we have moved on since then in our understanding on diet and well-being well, some of us have anyway....

Yes, we carked it early because we froze to death or met a grizzly end from a sabre-toothed tiger.

Our shared understanding of diet and wellbeing these days is rubbish! Just look at this thread.

And then take a look around you. Most people are, at best, overweight and malnourished. We may be living longer thanks to fewer life-or-death threats and modern medicine, but most of us are tubsters.

Why is your daughter so overweight?

She's not. From the OP:

firstly I never said she is obese - she's overweight but not terribly so.

The dowager. Most of us are not tubsters! Many carry an extra half stone or so but some are morbidly obese and accepting this as you seem to, is very sad. Young people. Its lack of daily exercise and poor diet, laying down a future of illness and morbidity. This young girl shouldn't be so overweight that her mother doesn't push breakfast or give her portable breakfast to eat on way to school.

Cave men and women obviously had totally shit diets. I’m miffed as to why anyone would think otherwise

I'm not accepting of obesity - I'm using its pervasiveness to show that we don't really have any more clue about health and wellbeing than we ever did.

And this relatively new idea of eating breakfast religiously, strangely coincides with us being bigger as a society than we've ever been.

This is a generic 'we', of course.

The cave people example wasn't about what they are, per se - but how they ate. Feast or famine.

And it's not even cave people.

If you were poor 200 years ago, you ate when food was available and went without when there wasn't.

Now we just eat all the time, from the minute we wake up. And most people in developed countries are, at best, overweight.

This thread is just ridiculous. Even if you accept that not eating breakfast is terrible (which I don't) the daughter could have been feeling ill for any reason. In addition she is 13!!! If a 13 year old can't put cereal and milk into a bowl or make a piece of toast for themselves if they want breakfast then what is the world coming to? To accuse the op of neglect is fucking bonkers.

"I am willing to bet my life she binges at 11am in the school canteen"

Ffs get a grip! Bet your life? Just one example of the absurdity on this thread.

@thedowager I think we are more educated that ever. Unfortunately a lot of it is psychological. We can be fully educated on healthy eating but do not have the willpower due to our habits and addictions, sugar being one.
I’m not saying it’s 100% psychological, as I can see in OP’s case it’s just a case of ignorance.
Of course everyone is different but reading the OP, it is VERY clear she is supportive of her child missing breakfast as she believes it to be beneficial. She is so concerned over her weight that she is overlooking her health. A 13 yo is a growing child.

Why do we wait for our sugar levels to drop before we eat?

Yeah you just you know, starved to death. Or got dysentery. What a way to live.

I hate all this paleo bollocks. It may be a healthy way to eat (although- lots of evidence it’s not) but it doesn’t relate to the live of a cave person at all

more rubbish on it than any thread I've ever read in 14 years of MNetting
I agree! I've never seen such a mad thread. So mad that I kept reading to see what heights it would reach. Have we been invaded??!!

@A580 so OP’s DD eats lunch at 12, snack at 4 and dinner at 8.30 yet she is overweight?
Think you’re the one who needs to get a grip.

Also who to fuck “eats all the time”?!? You surely know the vast Majority of people do nothing of the sort.

"The dd was ill due to not eating. "

No, we don't know that!

"is starting to feel ill from not eating properly."

No, we don't know that.

And this relatively new idea of eating breakfast religiously, strangely coincides with us being bigger as a society than we've ever been.

Upper and middle class Victorians and Edwardian ate three big meals a day and sometimes afternoon tea as well. They weren’t obese.

I don't get the hysteria over people not having breakfast and have never seen any actual evidence to suggest it's the most important meal of the day. I never eat it, I can't face it in the morning and I'm just not hungry. I'm certainly not going to force myself to eat when not hungry!

"The school have watched OP daughter go from a healthy weight to ‘obese’ in the past 2 years. Your words."

No, the OP said overweight. Why are you misquoting here?