to be annoyed that my dds school has been giving out certificates to children who bring in healthy packed lunches?

[spudmasher]

Today she took in a ham roll, four cherry tomatoes, a few slices of cucumber, some fresh pineapple and a small apple pie.

She was not given a certificate because she had the apple pie in her lunch!

When I was making her lunch tonight she asked me not to put a little cake in because it was unhealthy and she would not get a certificate.

I thought it was unreasonable to reward a child, or deny a reward on the basis of decisions made by the parent.

I also feel that six is too young an age to bear the responsbility of deciding what they should eat. Surely the child should be carefree and just trust the parents to know what is healthy?

I also thought that a little fat and sugar occassionally, will not be harmful to a child.

I also felt that they are encouraging children to deny themselves small pleasures - could lead to eating disorders imo.

Thanks. Feel better now.

Am I over reacting?

Have sent snotty e mail to school........

Our school bans obviously unhealthy stuff like crisps, fizzy bars and chocolate bars and leaves it at that. I'm veyr happy with that.

I absolutely hate this food thing in general whereby something like some really good local cheddar is deemed 'bad' because it has got a high saturated fate content and yet some cruddy convenience meal made from battery eggs and chickens, processed beyond belief and full of preservatives is demmed 'good' beacuse it is low fat.

Sleepless, that is what I thought.

Oh thank the lord that our school is sensible! They have been 'Jamie Olivered' and the school dinners are lovely - really nice, good food, with chocolate sponge once a week, chips once a week etc.

Packed lunches - we get a 'guidelines' leaflet, but nothing more than that. The kids get milk and fruit at break time, and there is a 'healthy tuck shop' open as they arrive at school, so they can buy cereal bars/dried fruit etc.

But when we went for new parents evening, the thing the teachers were really insistent about was that the child would eat their lunch, and that it was easy to open. And I quote 'send in a kit-kat, with the corner opened'. Because they know that balance is the key.

Having said all that, I do really worry about the messages the children get - ds1 (6) and dd (4) are forever telling me that 'cake is bad for you' so I keep saying 'it's not bad for you, a little bit of cake is good for you, it's if you eat a lot that it starts to not be so good'. But they are already putting food into good/bad categories. Which is REALLY worrying.

In fact, ds1 tells me that he wants to be a shopkeeper when he grows up, with a shop that 'sells bad food Mum - cakes, chocolate, sweets, pies'. So what does that tell you about the healthy eating message?

His lunchbox is always pretty much the same - he is the fussy eater from hell, and it is nearly impossible to balance his diet, but I think I manage. Bearing in mind he eats no meat, no fruit/veg except grapes/peas, nothing which is a 'mixture' of foods (i.e. no salads, pizza, pasta sauces etc). This is what he has.

Sandwich/roll - cheese, marmite or lemon curd.
Packet of grapes.
Jammie dodger.
Cereal bar - to my shame, this is a Coco Pops one but he needs the calories as he is very underweight, and is physically sick if he doesn't eat enough.
Fruit smoothie, or carton of fruit juice.

Sometimes I put in a couple of cocktail sausages as well, but I defy anyone to tell me how I could improve that with foods he would eat whilst maintaining both the nutritious and calorific content.

I'm afraid I haven't read all the posts but I would be really cross. I just know that when DD has to take in a lunch box this "policing" is really going to piss me off. Sorry but that's how I feel

everyone in this house has real full-fat food. I don't buy reduced-fat - generally it's cack and tastes like it. The adults in the family simply try to eat them moderately. We have no fat people here.

I am more concerned about processed foods generally and sugar and salt. But most of all I'm concerned with making an obsession with food the be all and end all of my childrens' lives.

(I should add, before anyone says - just give him healthy food, if he's hungry enough he'll eat it, that he won't. He was on school dinners for his first half term at school, and ate nothing, except on Fridays. So he has Friday school dinner. But the rest of the week he ate nothing at all from 8:00 till 4:00 - all he had was a carton of milk. And after half a term, his teacher suggested I switch him, because there was no improvement at all.)

All full fat here too.

Been through all the paperwork from the school and there appear to be no banned foods except nuts (extreme allergies within the building).

Hurrah - I seem to have a school with sense

YABU.

There might be lots of children in the school who has parents who struggle to get their kids to eat healthily, either because they need some basic information as to what healthy eating is, or because they dont carre. This scheme might encourage them to change bad eating habits, but it is dependent on as many kids as possible providing a good example.

If these kids see your dc munching through an apple pie, it might be counter productive. Who is to say your dc did not chuck the hamroll, and ate only the pie? Would it still be a healthy lunch?

All the things in her lunchbox were healthy except the apple pie. Who says kids needs cake everyday? That is just absurd.

I can see some of you with a big banner outside a school saying:

CAKE TO OUR KIDS! CAKE TO OUR KIDS!

There is something Marie Antoinette-esque over this.

I applaud the school.

I expect to be flamed, I realize I go against the common opinion on this thread, I have my shield up, waiting to be bombarded by cakes and crips!

Poor you tortoise. DD1 is fussy. She will eat breakfast and lunch really well, but dinner is a nightmare. She wont touch hot veg excpet the odd nibble of brocolli, and wont touch potato of any kind, not even that keen on chips. And I even have to debate with meat, even chicken which she used to love.
If it's pasta or noodles tho, she will hoover it up

But it's the whole 'this is a bad food, you do not get a certificate' ethos that is wrong. Foods are not bad or good (with some notable exceptions). It is the whole meal that is balanced or not.

Only read OP.

We had a similar situation when my children were at primary school.

A dinner supervisor took it upon herself to give the contents of each packed lunch a mark out of ten for "healthiness".

The irony of the fact that she was obese, and her children were well on their way to becoming so, seemed to be lost on her.

I would be annoyed by this.

I am of average intelligence, consider myself to be an adequate parent, and know how to feed my children a balanced diet.

I don't need someone to check up on this fact on a regular basis, especially someone who is not particularly qualified to do so.

I hope your snotty email has the desired effect.

i'm still having to add extra butter/full fat milk to stuff for dh to keep his calories up as isnt eating much. but that means we are all consuming extra oops.

regards to school meals/lunchboxers, well dd's school has lovely healthy 'home made' foods, not oprocessed, all produced on site. fridays is 'fun day' they can bring in chococlate as a snack and the canteen serves pizza and chips. the kids think its junk food, but again its all 'home made' stuff and not processed. no idea on the lunch box policy as dd's have school meals. i do tell thats dd's that food isnt bad as such, but once in a while is fine to have stuff like chocolatespread on toast as long as its not all the time. they take in fruit daily and also get a free piece of fruit after school with the schools fruit scheme. they have fruit after school, get 2-3 portions of veg with dinner. (dd3 finishes off everyones elses that leaves any, especially if its sweet corn or brocolli). i would say they have a balanced diet. kids need good fats, not low fat/no sugar crap.

There is something to that post Tira, but why should other people's children be responsible for making sure the fussy kids eat???

It's not fair. I would be quite annoyed if my child were deprived (yes, even of pie) because someone else's child might not eat there sandwich

The world has gone pc mad imo, and I HATE it.

BoM how old is your dd, my dd went through a phase of that between 2 and 3 and we're just coming out the other side, thank god, remember not sleeping as she hadnt eaten and i was so worried!

I won't flame you, Tiramisu - you're my favourite pudding!

I see your point about parents who don't provide a balanced diet - but they should be given direct support.

I really don't think that lunchbox checks for all is the way to educate or re-educate children and parents about healthy eating.

Cookery lessons in school, and limiting what food companies can get away with, in terms of ingredients, marketing and advertising would be more effective, imo.

Now if you were creme brulee on the other hand...

This topic has got long so got bored of reading, but I did read most of the posts.
There was a bit of a moan amongst parents at DD's school when we were told children were not allowed to drink anything at school except water.
A lot of the parents were complaining that because their dc's did not really like water that they would go thirsty (this was at the end of the summer time btw). Thing is , it wasn't even down to healthy eating in the end, it was because someones drink had leaked and there had been some ants .
I dread to think what your dd's school would say about my dd's lunch, she has crips and a choc mini roll every day. She also has salad or a roll or breadsticks and a pot full of fruit plus fruit at snack time, but I dont see the big deal with her eating a small mini roll when the rest of her lunch is balanced.

On another note, DS has double cream every night on his 'puddin'(fruit salad) after dinner. What a bad parent I must be.

Oh Orm, that is goooooood!

DD1 is 4 in DEC. She ate everything til she was 2yo then became quite fussy and is getting worse, not better with age.
It is a daily debate, she judges on sight and just getting her to taste it is a battle, which I try not to enter into btw as it doesn't help. Once she tries it she will sometimes eat it if it's nice, but it is wearing after a while. I cook something pasta every other day so she eats it, then something with pots and veg the other days which she will rarely touch, then she gets nothing else.

She ate 3 bowls of branflakes this am and toast

Needless to say, last night was not a pasta/noodles night

But why oh why should kids need cake to school?

Cake, crisps, chocolate, etc are treats! Must they be in childrens lunch boxes?

The lunch box is ONE meal. If you want to give your kids a healthy portion of fat, must it be during school hours? If you want to give your children cake, can you not bring one at pick up time?

I dont think eating a slice of cake every day is particularly healthy. What do you do for additional treats? Another piece of cake, an ice cream, crisps? These children will grow up and think a daily piece of cake is a must, and as grown ups they dont need all this fat and sugar, but they will still eat cake?

Look at it long term, healthy eating is a habit you form, not something you look at from a day to day perspective. A slice of cake a day, will become the norm, and then you find yourself a 30 something year old who eat your daily cake, and then you might find you pile on the pounds, and you may curse your mother for getting you into the habit of eating cake every day.

And yes, as a nation, obesity is on the up, it is everybody's common responsibility to help ensure everybody has a healthy lifestyle. It is not about policing, it is about responsibility.

mustadd that with her sandwich at lunch she will eat tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce. Also loves apple, grapes, and oranges, so her diet is not that bad. Sje just drives me nuts with dinner.

thank god for school dinners

I usually give DD1 peanut butter sandwiches too as it is good fat, tho high, and also lots of energy.

I doubt still eating a choc mini roll every day at 40 will cause obesity, and yes the lunchbox is one meal, but as I am the parent I decide when my children have their treat. They have it at lunchtime. If I was to give them cake at picking up time they probably wouldn't be as hungry for dinner, and if I was to give them it after dinner then they wouldn't be getting the fruit they have after dinner every day. Also, DD does not always eat her cake/crisps she knows she is to eat the good stuff first, then if she is still hungry/has time she eats the rest. She often comes home with a full bag of crisps or half a cake left over because she says she was full and didn't want to eat them. I am not forcing her to eat cake every day, just giving her the option.

Tiramisu who said it was cake every day? Genuine question, cos I think I missed that.

I just think that a non-boring lunchboxes is hard enough to plan as it is. About once in a blue moon, I make a cake for an "easy" pudding, and I don't see why I couldn't put in a small slice into a packed lunch for variety. Ditto a slice of cold pizza when I've made pizza the night before (ds1 adores having a lunchbox with cold pizza in it because it feels really special - and you know what - it's probably a LOT healthier for him than a sandwich because it's bread based with an awful lot more veg on top than I'd ever get in him otherwise).

One size doesn't fit all. No matter how many problems the government want to solve that way.