Are these school lunchbox rules particularly nonsensical? Or are they all this bad?!

[Nevertimeforcake]

So according to my (primary) schools ‘healthy’ lunchbox rules I can give my child a kitkat (biscuit based chocolate bar) but I can’t give them a small chocolate coin or some cubes of chocolate as these are solid chocolate. It seems to make no sense to me - indeed the whole policy seems to be a box ticking exercise so they can be considered a ‘healthy school’ by County. Does anyone know of guidelines/ rules that make more sense? I’d like to make a suggestion on improvements rather than just complaining!

@Smallwhiterat

(The writing of green in an amber colour would irrationally annoy me tho!)

And I'm having a silent rage at them using donut; which is the Americanised spelling. Being English I prefer "doughnut".

Do the posters saying why not a chocolate coin when a Kit Kat is fine, or similar, ever engage their brain? Do you really want a list with thousands upon thousands of products on there, and their quantities allowed? This is a simple list as it needs to be. It's much easier to say no chocolate than to say no dairy milk 200g, no mars bar man size etc etc x 1000

Incidentally are they allowed jam and clotted cream when they have a scone for a treat? No point otherwise!!

We live in a nanny state unfortunately.

My ds’s primary has no rules around lunch boxes which is lucky for him as his lunchbox is probably a mumsnet cliche of what not to feed your child. He has the same 4 days a week as has fish finger Friday school dinner. His lunch box is a small ham sandwich, 6 cocktail sausages, a frube yogurt, slice of melon, pepper slices then a bun of some sort, currently mr Kipling angel slice all washed down with a fruit shoot. Due to Halloween I’m also putting in a small haribo bag to get rid of the sweets at home. He insists on the same everyday and won’t eat and other fruit or veg. Older ds by comparison has pasta with either roast chicken in tomato sauce or salad, apple/pear/plum and a yogurt with a bottle of water.
Ds7’s lunch is not great but I know he will eat it and I’d rather he eat well then pick at things he doesn’t really want and be hungry

By biscuit bar they’re referring to a small treat like a club or penguin but not a Mars bar or similar. Very hard to specify quantities of chocolate allowed.

No nuts at all. So no trail mix or such even though that's better for you than cake, jelly and crisps which are allowed. The fuck even is this?

@arethereanyleftatall

Yabu.

It really irritates me when people are irritated by these rules.

Some parents give their food shite. Everyone surely knows this? Anyone who has worked in a school can tell you that the shite is exactly what's written in the red column. So, the rules aren't for you, they're obviously there so that these parents aren't singled out. It's fucking obvious. Just stick to the rules, it's not difficult.

but that's the point, it IS that difficult.

I can easily follow a no sweet or junk food of any kind.

Who can be bothered to double-check the list to see what content is acceptable in your roll or home-made cakes that week.

@CrazyPigeonLadyMarried2Trans

No nuts at all. So no trail mix or such even though that's better for you than cake, jelly and crisps which are allowed. The fuck even is this?

pretty much all schools have banned nuts.

Nothing to do with healthy diet, it's about allergies.

I never really understand the need for policing lunchboxes, beyond the likes of..no nuts if there is a child with a severe allergy.

I think I am biased a bit though by our schools 'rules'. Hell on and sent home uneaten is theres anything sweets like. However, they give the kids haribo packets in class for good work I got a bollocking once for sending in a slice of cake after her birthday with her lunch..yet days later, they gave out a cake in class for someones birthday. Contradictions everywhere.

Also, nuts are a choking hazard. Fine to give them to your kid when they're in your care; equally fine for schools not to want to take the same risks. Imo.

We can't even put in most of the things on the amber list so that's better than here!
We get away with a soreen, but anything like crisps/quavers/kipling cakes/kitkat is a big no.

@maddiemookins16mum

How us kids of the 70s survived on a Mothers Pride sandwich with fish or chicken paste, a Blue Ribband and a packet of crisps I’ll never know.

Ha ha! I was thinking that.

And just in case your parents had given you a healthy lunch by mistake, Mars Bars, crisps, Panda shandy and bright pink iced cakes were available from the tuck shop.

I’m a child of the 70s too but I think we played out more and so there was less obesity. Unfortunately these days eating too many sugary snacks coupled with being inactive causes overweight kids.

Also sweets given out for kids’ birthdays are from parents not school.

I think the more damaging part of this is the insistence that individual meals need to include foods from several food groups in order to be nutritional (fruit, veg, dairy, non dairy protein, treat). As long as the types of food eaten over a period of time balance out it really doesn't matter if an individual meal doesn't include items from a particular food group and in fact trying to do so may well mean the portion size becomes larger than that which is nutritionally optimal.

In my experience of working in primary schools, there isn’t an issue with missing out dairy for example so long as the lunch was nutritious and without too much sugar/salt. Generally schools give guidelines.

Because a cube of chocolate or a chocolate coin is more of a treat/sweet? A kitcat or penguin is a snack? Why would you give your child chocolate coins in their lunch box anyway?

Another child of the 1970s. But actually packed lunches were pretty rare for most of my schooldays.

In primary you either stayed for school dinners ( a "proper" dinner of meat , potatoes and veg followed by pudding and custard - no choices) or you went home for lunch.

In secondary the same but there were two or three choices and always a salad option and yoghurt or fruit if you didn't want the proper pudding.

I was in sixth form by the time cafeteria style meals were introduced and packed lunches became more common. Of course nobody policed what you brought in.

Just because they were being so dictatorial I would rebel and tell them it was my child/children and I would feed them as I see fit.

Unless there was a risk that the children were malnourished and it were a safeguarding matter (or related to a severe allergy, so a nut restriction or similar), then it is not their concern. I wouldn't even read the 'rules'.
I wouldn't send them in with piles of crisps or tubs raisins, but if I wanted them to have a sausage roll, a pot of olives or an iced birthday bun then that is what they would have.

Remember, all those horror stories about cold Happy Meals and Gregg's sausage rolls in school lunchboxes? They're true!!

This list is common sense to most but putting the obvious in an official school document helps avoid awkward conversations with that one in a million parent who thinks a 2 pack of Pop Tarts and a can of Red Bull is a meal!

I would hope most schools give a little leeway but it looks about right, doesn't it?

To parents with sense, it does seem ridiculous. In your position I’d be more at them sending home a chocolate coin but wanting to give every child a chocolate selection box when there’s a thousand brilliant things the PTA could buy for the children instead.

As others have said though, the lunchbox thing is because it’s easier to enforce blanket rules, and unfortunately sometimes they do have to cater for stupid. Just go with it.

At our school the amber foods are in the red column!

School meals : stops all that faffing around.

I never read the rules for lunches. I don't put nut products in obviously to protect other children who might have allergies. But if I see fit to put in a little cake or chocolate bar, I do. Nothing has ever been said about it.