To not understand how it's cheaper to send dc to school with a cold happy meal than a packed lunch?

[bobstersmum]

In the news this week, an article about children in deprived areas being sent to school with a cold happy meal. Then parents in another article defending the reasons for it, saying that sometimes it's all they can afford. I just can't understand it? A happy meal is 2.99 I think? But a cheap loaf of bread is 50p, a cheap pack of sandwich meat or cheese is less than a pound, bag of bananas a pound multipack of crisps a pound, that's lunches for the week for around the same cost?

I’ve read a near identical article on Facebook this week from an American site about a pupil in Philadelphia.

Meanwhile, if people really want a headline to get outraged about, how about the fact that Starbucks, Facebook, Amazon and many more huge corporations paid zero tax in the UK last year? Not a penny. The lazy, feckless scroungers.

Tax that could be used to support vital services like domestic abuse shelters, Sûre Start centres, universally free school lunches and breakfast clubs.

While we're all nitpicking about the cost of a Tesco Value loaf and hating poor people for their decisions, we're not getting outraged about the right things. I'd say that's a worse decision than sending a kid to school with a cold Happy Meal.

I don’t buy that there would be a Mac Donald’s and no food shop.

If things were that bad I couldn’t afford to feed my children I would be doing any or numerous jobs to ensure that changed and that they could eat a decent nutritious lunch.

If people can afford £2.69 for a Happy meal they can afford £2.20/£2.40/£2.60 for school dinners. And it’s less effort than going to McDonald’s!

And of course, the reality is that many people who send their children to school with inadequate food are dysfunctional or lazy. Of course they are. As a facet of poverty, dysfunctionality needs as much unpicking as the crude issue of money has been given on this thread (or a lot more). But that doesn’t mean everyone who makes choices we wouldn’t label as optimal for children is just a lazy oik.

But who in their right minds would choose to buy their kids a Happy Meal instead of milk or fresh bread???

Perhaps they didn’t? Perhaps the other parent, a grandparent or a friend brought the child home with a Happy Meal or perhaps it was a one off treat. It’s quite possible the child also had a sandwich and various other more familiar items that we see in lunchboxes as well.

I think this is more likely kids from homes where parents are struggling to cope. Often food poverty is due to poor choices, I have worked with families where feeding the kids is not a priority but cigarettes and drink are and as a result children go hungry, go without proper clothing. Free school meals are available in Scotland for primary 1/3, I think it needs to be rolled out everywhere, then kids in dysfunctional homes will at least have one meal a day.

I don’t buy that there would be a Mac Donald’s and no food shop.

You don’t buy it? Well, I can tell you right now that the main road I grew up on had a McDonalds and no supermarket. It was a choice between a half hour walk and a 5 minute walk. And it’s all very well to say, “Walk the half hour then!” but that isn’t practical for everyone with jobs/babies/disabilities/caring responsibilities.

But who in their right minds would choose to buy their kids a Happy Meal instead of milk or fresh bread???

Jesus wept

The person drawing their money out at the stroke of midnight as it goes in, who has a 24 hour McDonalds but the shop closed an hour ago and hungry children who've waited up as there was nothing to eat earlier? As I said, too much privilege to see.

Jesus wept.

OrangeZog

Or there’s a custody arrangement in place where one parent has much more money than the other, and a Happy Meal came home uneaten on Sunday night. Parent with no money in their hand looks in fridge, sees enough food to last three days and not five, and decides not to waste chicken and chips.

Nothing stupid or unwise about using up leftover food and letting nothing go to waste. My lunches are always made up of scraped together teatime leftovers. They look like someone puked up in a plastic tub but they are tasty enough and help cut spending 😁 If, on the other hand, the parents sending cold MacDonalds food in as packups are doing it because they can’t be bothered to cheaply chuck together a sandwich, a piece of fruit, and a bottle of tap water...then yes, I agree that is lazy parenting. But who on earth knows the reality behind these little catchy nuggets (scuse pun) clawed together by the journalist. Whatever sells papers.

And like previous posters have said....why oh why are the universal free school meals not being used by the younger children? Fantastic facility - providing nutrition to the littler children as well as energy to keep them learning all afternoon...who would have any realistic arguement against them?

I'm not sure why people keep saying lunches should be free. They are! For all of KS1 regardless of income, and KS2 if in reciept of benefits.

I'm not sure why people keep saying lunches should be free. They are! For all of KS1 regardless of income

Only in some parts of the UK

It's not poverty. There are universal free school meals up to a certain age in primary school anyway and thereafter means tested free school meals.

On the school run in the morning I have seen 7 years old walking alongside their parent eating a Mars bar each and on another occasion in the morning an approximate 8 year old, also with a parent, drinking a can of energy drink!

This will sound awful but in my opinion it's sheer stupidity in some cases, laziness and neglect for whatever reason that may be, which of course is massively complex.

@Jenala "In social services we used to give out supermarket vouchers marked 'no alcohol or tobacco'."

I really didn't know that happened. May I ask roughly what years you're thinking of? I might be a mug, but I thought the rise in food banks was a sign of poverty going up and I didn't know that social services had given vouchers in the past.

Companies using tax reduction is nothing new, loads will along with self employed people claiming every expense possible to pay less tax etc. Those large companies employ a lot of people, some of which will be paying tax too.

It’s sad we see it as the states job to provide free lunches etc rather than a parents job. More funding should be available for social workers than free food to change the lives of those children not being adequately fed or parented where it occurs.

*On the school run in the morning I have seen 7 years old walking alongside their parent eating a Mars bar each and on another occasion in the morning an approximate 8 year old, also with a parent, drinking a can of energy drink!

This will sound awful but in my opinion it's sheer stupidity in some cases, laziness and neglect for whatever reason that may be, which of course is massively complex.*

We’ve all seen similar things. There’s a group of young lads who frequent haunt our town centre, all smoking and downing energy drinks, swearing and fighting, and getting thrown out of shops. Obviously they are not being well parented.

Saying X doesn’t always equal Y isn’t the same as saying X never equals Y.

Have we had the George Orwell quote yet?

“Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you.”

The Road To Wigan Pier, 1937

A PP is right, Poverty is insidious. And harmful and not all decisions are rational.

Except that some bad decisions are entirely rational.

www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/your-brain-on-poverty-why-poor-people-seem-to-make-bad-decisions/281780/

Agree with pp. Always an excuse somewhere, either cost or social issues, when the reality is it’s just lazy parenting by people who really can’t be arsed. I’ve been a single parent and could always afford, on very little money, to feed my DCs healthy meals.

I’ve been a single parent and could always afford, on very little money, to feed my DCs healthy meals.

Ever been an asylum seeker? Ever lived in a hostel? Ever had to start again from scratch with a third hand sofa and blankets from a shelter? Ever had to share cooking facilities with ex-convicts and drug addicts? Ever eaten out of a bin?

Poverty for many people in this country precludes healthy eating.

Omg I spend next to nothing on my sons packed lunches!

Blueberries or seasonal berries from the local market 3 punnets for a pound (usually get 2 lots a week as berries are a family favourite!).

Bananas 89p in Aldi.

50/50 bread 60p ish.

Aldi version of mini cheddars 75p for 7 packs.

Cooked ham trimmings (I refuse to buy shite meat as it's all water but the trimmings are lovely and you get loads!) 1.99 for a huge pack.

Aldi cheese spread 50p.

Aldi Petit filous style yoghurts 89p for 12.

6.92 for the week, does both boys pretty much (the little one has a bit less as he's still a baby so i portion up his mini cheddars has he has one slice of bread for his sandwiches) but that's approx 60p each a day...

Disgusting to send a cold happy meal into school!

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss you're so right, of course. Gawd bless these huge, tax dodging, employee abusing multinationals. Where would we be without them? * tugs forelock*

I wasn't sneering about happy meals. My dc have a happy meal now and then. I was asking how someone could only afford to send a COLD happy meal bought the day before as a lunch for their child when it's so much cheaper to make a fresh lunch.

bobstersmum

But you clearly didn’t actually read the article you posted, did you?

Not the fault of companies or the government if parents aren’t providing. The people responsible for children are their parents.