To not know what exactly passes as a healthy lunch for a 5 year old?

[DragginBallsEEEE]

Just reading another thread and opinions are mixed on whether OPs lunch is ok or too much which has made me question my own DDs lunch. I will say that I grew up quite poor and getting groceries was the highlight of my week and as such I am now an adult who is overweight so definitely don't have the best relationship with food and my children are larger than their peers. I don't deny them food and they do snack on things like fruit and yogurt or sliced meats but do limit their junk food and presently don't buy anything other than wotsits/quavers and fibre one bars as junk.

DD is 5 and on the heavy side. On a typical day for school lunch I will give her:

Either a ham thin OR cold pasta with ham chopped through it.
A banana or handful of grapes.
A cheesestring
A small yogurt/frube or custard pot.
A bottle of water or on the odd occasion apple juice.

I thought this was perfectly fine but after seeing replies on the other thread I am wondering if I should change what I give her. She eats the whole lot most days. She doesn't eat salad or veg which is frustrating but will eat fruit.

So AIBU to be worried about what I am giving her or does it sound ok? What do your lower primary aged children have?

It sounds fine op. My 6 year old has a packed lunch once a week (school dinners the other days). She has a cheese spread or tuna or salami wrap, a packet of crisps, cucumber sticks and a penguin bar. At the weekend all my dc eat similar lunches.
I am a primary school teacher and, when working in mainstream, this would be similar to 90% of other kids’ lunches. 5% would be healthier, 5% even worse.
Now I teach in an ASC setting and the kids eat mostly crisps!

Everyone saying the yoghurts have too much sugar, a typical children's yoghurt has about 8g of sugar
An apple 15-20
An orange 10
A banana 15
Grapes about 15 for a handful

So a yoghurt has less sugar than another peice of fruit, plus it has calcium. I would argue that a yoghurt is better than a piece of fruit in terms of sugar, and a yoghurt and a piece of fruit is a healthy lunch. Definitely don't replace it with bloody raisins as mentioned up thread!

And I'm a dentist so I'm very anti-sugar! But whilst our sugar in take should be decreased as much as possible I think that if it means cutting out foods that are good for you in other ways like yoghurt and fruit, then it's a problem. We can't live off vegetables alone (and actually we'd be missing a lot of key nutrients if we did)

The problem with sugar I think is when we start snacking on sugary things (including fruit!). And have sugary foods that are just sugar, like coke or chocolate.

A bit of sugar with our meals fine, particularly if it comes as part of foods with other nutritional benefits.

I'm genuinely always baffled at the amount of people who shriek that flavoured yoghurts are full of sugar…then suggest buying natural yoghurt and stirring honey or jam through it.

‘If she must have cheese’ is funniest thing I’ve read on MN for awhile.

These threads are always ludicrous.

Just a note to the cheese police on here, I would always choose cheese as a sandwich filler over ham - cheese has calcium and is known to reduce the effects of acid erosion on teeth if you have also eaten something acidic like fruit. Ham (in large quantities) and other processed meats are known to be carcinogenic.

I also think that two children could eat exactly the same diet and one could still be skinnier than the other because they have a faster metabolism and are genetically predisposed to be lean, whilst the other might be genetically predisposed to carry weight differently. I know there are children in my DDs class who have much less healthy lunchbox contents than she does and yet are still skinnier than her, I do think sometimes it's just the way it is.

Also the WHO recommends 10% of your daily intake max which is about 50g for an adult, with the suggestion that 5% so 25g might be beneficial in terms of reduced dental caries.

If you keep it to mealtimes and don't have sugary snacks then that will do that and personally I would aim for 25g but not worry too much as long as the sugary foods have nutritional value and I was under 50 (or probably about 40 for a child).

Also a ham sandwich and a cheese sandwich do exactly the same in terms of reducing dental erosion, cheese just stimulates the saliva and this helps if eaten after the acidic food. The study's also suggest a block of wax, but I'm not recommending was sandwiches!

Please don't give up on vegetables by saying she won't eat them! It takes them something like 10x to try something and like it. Introduce new veges as a snack. Put a bowl of sliced yellow or orange pepper, cucumber, mange tout beans, peas in their pods or sliced cherry tomatoes out during meal times. Cut out after school snacks completely and move to a 5pm tea if you can. If she's hungry she'll eat!
Read that book 'Why French children don't throw food' or whatever it's called. But of an eye opener it was.

Also, historically, fruit was a treat. Eating five pieces a day is not REALLY getting your Five a Day.
Interestingly, in Japan, its Ten a Day. They only made it five because they knew if it was any higher people wouldn't even try.

I assume people putting almonds in their children's lunches have checked their school are happy for people to have nuts in their lunch. They certainly wouldn't do anything to improve my son's health...

Makes me mad that parents try so hard to give their child healthy lunches and the PTAs fund raising involves sweets fests every time

It depends on what she eats the rest of the day and also her level of activity. There is no hard and fast rule. If YOUR Dd is overweight then YOUR Dd is eating too much. Another child could eat twice that and still be a rake. Others can't.

Makes me mad that parents try so hard to give their child healthy lunches and the PTAs fund raising involves sweets fests every time

Well maybe you could volunteer to come with some different alternatives . Ah I bet you work so are far too busy . But that's a completely different thread.

@Teateaandmoretea seriously, you're saying that someone who works can't help? I'm with the pp on those the PTFA at our school have so many different sweet sales /ice cream van etc - and the weekly cake sales are cheap enough that frankly we'd make more money if everyone donated the few pounds they would have spent on something from the store or from baking.

There are other ways to raise money, without having to sell sweets, especially in an area with quite a bit of child obesity. Having an overweight DC (as well as other slim DCs, so it's not all about what we eat at home), it's so frustrating to be surrounded by junk food at every school event, and have them eat pudding every day with school meals, then get helpful pamphlets about sugar reduction.

The fibre in fruit mitigates the impact of those sugars on the body. There's no point doing a straight comparison of the sugar content of added-sugar yoghurts with fruit if you ignore fibre.

I'm sure both are fine in balanced diet for kids or adults.

stuck that isn't what I'm saying at all...... I'm saying that it's the people who don't lift a finger in any way (usually because they are 'busier' than everyone else) who criticise.

My 12 year old son is a bit chubby - the high range of normal and in his age clothes. But other kids have called him fat before.

He had science homework the other day of looking at nutrients and calories - how they work in the body. He downloaded an app called my fitness pal so he could record what he eats and work out how many good and bad bits there are in his food. It’s made him want to make better choices and he’s slimming down all the time. I’ve also downloaded an app called change 4 life food scanner. You can scan the barcode and see how much sugar something has.

Might be useful!

DD1 is 9 and she has:

Sandwich on one slice of bread or a finger roll / mini wrap - cheese, ham, chicken or tuna.
Frube type yoghurt.
Something savoury - cucumber, olives, breadsticks, cocktail sausages etc
Fruit - her favourites are apple and grapes, or strawberries in the summer

On days she does sports, a cereal bar as well for snack. On a friday, I'll put a small chocolate treat in as well. Her school is no nuts, otherwise she'd love a peanut butter sandwich!

It doesn't look like very much, but if I send anything else in, it comes back uneaten!