To think the public have the society they deserve

[GoodnightAdeline]

Just read yet another post in our town mums’ Facebook group about the ‘lunchbox letter’. In essence a local primary has written to parents asking them to stop putting sweets and other garbage in their kids’ lunch boxes and all hell has broken loose. ‘How dare they tell my what to feed my child’ ‘tell them to fuck off’ ‘we’ll give the kids an eating disorder’ ‘my kid will only eat cheese strings and cola bottles, do they want her to starve’ etc

It was the same with the ‘your child is overweight’ letters, the ‘please send them in with water not Prime’ letters, the ‘please watch them as they cross the road after school because we had a near miss the other day and are getting complaints’ letters.

After a million such posts with defensive, vitriolic replies I’m beginning to think, why bother improving the NHS/dentistry etc? Why bother helping people who won’t help themselves.

YES I KNOW I’M BEING UNREASONABLE but the above mindset just seems so prevalent it depresses me to unreasonableness!

I think being a responsible, considerate parent does make you a better person.

They wouldn’t need to be told what to do if they did the most basic things correctly.

ItsNotAShopItsAStore · Today 09:14
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I don’t think it’s showing kids a healthy attitude to label certain foods as “forbidden” at certain times. On packed lunch days my kids get crisps or chocolate along with other healthy stuff. I’d never dream of telling them it’s only something to be had at home.
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some people really don’t realise they’re handing their kid a one way ticket to an eating disorder unfortunately, and language/boundaries/attitudes about food are a big contributing factor”

You send yours with an healthy lunch and a treat. Problem is, others send nothing but processed, sugary and fatty food every day.

Schools don’t really have a choice but to ban it all to try to protect this kids whose parents just don’t care.

A lot of this is down to the government. At one time, school lunches had to be nutritionally balanced, and children regularly did PE and played outside.

Now it's all about profit. Feed children what is cheapest, not what is good for them.

Cookery was part of the curriculum, so that children had a basic understanding of nutritional values.

I agree about entitled adults. Generally, people are more aggressive and defensive than they used to be. There is zero respect for authority.

I believe that is part of the problem. If people were left alone to make mistakes, they'd soon learn and not need to be told. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. People get so used to being told what to do and get comfortable with a regimented lifestyle that they can't think for themselves.

I agree with this. Trouble is those are the people who refuse to be told anything! Because as we've seen on this thread they know far better than any professional!

But that mistake cannot be allowing their kids to become obese because that’s setting them up for a lifetime of health issues costing the state £££

I clicked on the profiles of the aggressive responses and 70% of their kids were noticeably overweight

My DC are grown, but back in the day I so appreciated the school stepping in. If everybody had similar healthy lunchboxes, there would be less pressure on then to eat junk.

Generally, people are more aggressive and defensive than they used to be. There is zero respect for authority.

Because 'authority' isn't very respectable either. Professionals should stick to their jobs. Teachers should teach their subjects, they shouldn't overstep what is the territory of the family.

On the side note, i find it hilarious that now so many kids are starting school not toilet trained. That's your direct result of the nanny state knowing how to raise your kids better. So 'authority' can teach them how to shit too.

So if they shouldn’t overstep why do the same parents insist the school help with their kids mental health issues?

That is a symptom of the nanny state. If people want to load up their bodies with rubbish and do a terrible job of raising their kids, let them. The NHS is open to abuse by design. Mistakes have to be made to ensure they're never made again. Society can't progress without learning first hand why certain ways of living are a bad idea. And humans are quite silly creatures anyway. If you see a giant red button with 'DO NOT PRESS', you can't tell me with a straight face that you don't want to press it. You know you shouldn't, but curiosity will get the better of you.

You can't reason with stupid, but actually I blame media, social and mainstream, for the idiocy of the vast majority of the populace. Just look at the low-brow rubbish that people consume. Celebrity gossip, footballers and their partners, soap stars, and mindless crap like Big Brother, Gogglebox, Love Island, etc. These individuals and the uneducated shite they spout are held up as examples of beauty and success in modern Britain. We are reaping what's been sown.

That's not correct. Preventative denistry is extremely important for dental health. Sugar is not the only cause of dental issues. Problems occur from the way teeth are situated in the mouth which impacts plaque build up and ability to clean; and from genetic factors. Advice and support had declined hugely over recent years and typically requires a proactive search rather than accessing services offered with take up encouraged. Advice changes and can go against what common sense or instinct might suggest (for example that fruit juice, with its healthy reputation is damaging for teeth, or when is the optimum time for brushing around meal times) Not everyone has the ability or capacity for self education and services are failing to meet the needs of these families.

So if they shouldn’t overstep why do the same parents insist the school help with their kids mental health issues?

Maybe because the school is the primary cause of those issues? Think bullying, think exam pressure, etc.

But not their problem, they should stick to teaching right? Surely if a child is a bully that’s the problem of their parents? Or do you just want teachers to step in when convenient and back off when you say so?

True. My DM’s teeth were never good, but her sister - same parents, same childhood diet and environment, had perfect white teeth, and still had them all with hardly a filling, when she died in her mid 80s.

Good point. It's not just some kids being fed a shitty diet of food, there's lots of their parents overdosing on a shitty diet of media bollocks.

But not their problem, they should stick to teaching right? Surely if a child is a bully that’s the problem of their parents? Or do you just want teachers to step in when convenient and back off when you say so?

Unironically, that's exactly how teachers behave in cases of bullying. "Nothing we can do! They come from troubled background! bla bla bla! Just make sure you teach your child to never defend himself!"

I appreciate that schools are trying and there are good reasons to ban certain foods from lunchboxes, but giving out giant bags of haribos as prizes and encouraging a Friday treat is giving entirely the wrong messages about food.

I have a dc with ARFID and we were very limited in what we could give him within the limitations of the school lunchbox rules - in the early years it had to be a sandwich and not anything eaten from a flask with a spoon. Yogurts were banned because they stained the carpets. Couldn’t bring a smoothie because only liquid allowed was plain water. No bananas or satsumas because teacher ends up opening them. My other dc was in a class where there was an allergy to seeds, nuts and dairy. Obviously we were happy to support those needs but it would help if they’d lighten up on some of the other less fatal restrictions.

Started secondary with recommendations for healthy lunches (although no outright bans) and then they brought in an external company to offer lunches with the most extensive array of junk options you could imagine.

My school doesn’t have rules about no chocolate or crisps. Totally ludicrous to comparing it to sending a child in non-uniform

TBH I don’t care what other kids do or don’t get. Not my problem. It’s also quite worrying we live in a society where where are scared to tell our kids other people have different things and they can’t always have the same as them

This is exactly why I’d seethe at being bossed around about a lunchbox - because my DD has been subject to bullying and they very much take a “nothing we can do” stance. I’d take exception to the concept of clamping down on lunchboxes but not bullying

Gosh, I really don't see how this is overstepping or bossing. I would be grateful. Not that my kids never eat junk. No forbidden foods in our house. But good to have healthy daily meals as far as possible.

I remember a good few years ago when Jamie Oliver was tasked with making school meals healthier. It didn't work. Mountains of healthy food were being thrown away every day while pictures emerged of parents at the school fence passing over parcels of burgers and chips to their children. So you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
Nobody is obese because they are poverty stricken. They are obese because they shove crap down their gobs day in day out. There is massive poverty in many third world countries yet none of them.are obese.
As I said in another post, modern day culture seems to dictate that nobody is expected to take responsibility for themselves.
Pretty sure plenty pps will be handing me my arse on an extra large dinner plate, so cracked on

I remember Jamie Oliver's School Lunch fiasco when some parents began pushing 'turkey twizzlers' through the playground railings.

@Helloworld56 But some people don't see the children's school as an authority