To think that free breakfast at school is a bad idea due to the quality?

[Mushypeass]

Firstly, I fully agree with the principle of free breakfast for all pupils. My reservation comes from the quality of food that is often served up in UK school canteens. Obviously a poor quality breakfast is better than no breakfast at all but AIBU that it could encourage children to eat even more UPFs? For example, children who have may had a relatively healthy breakfast at home may now opt eat UPFs at school with their pals instead.

Seocondly, why is the food so poor in so many schools? How can other countries manage to provide their youth with nutritious and healthy meals but we can’t?

Maybe the problem is too many options - if breakfast was simply porridge (perhaps with a choice of toppings) then everyone would have porridge and they would likely eat it. If white toast or sugary cereal is available then a lot of kids will make the unhealthy (or possibly familiar) choice.

Brain chemistry was debunked decades ago. Even the psychiatrists have said this is not the case and the WHO!

We react differently because we experience things differently and perceive things differently. Lockdown being a perfect example. Did a group of people's brain chemicals all change in March 2020 or was it that some people struggled being isolated while others enjoyed the peace and quiet? Absolutely lockdown was a huge plus for trauma informed model of mental health highlighting it wasnt to do with brain chemicals.

Yes we can disagree but for me being black is not abnormal nor a mental health issue nor is wandering womb but crack on believing that. By all means continue with the stigma. I do not believe in stigmatising people who are reacting normally to things in life. We can disagree on that as I never will agree that stigma is ok.

Mental health issues are classed as an illness to control and stigmatise people.

That's not due to poverty though is it?
There's a big difference between parents that can't feed their kids and parents that won't feed their kids.

if that is what schools are feeding them, it’s ok.

but I’m not sure they, especially not eggs, which are so nutritious.

special k isnt brilliant, nor is a white bagel, but variation is key, and sounds like it’s not every day.

I should add that one of my children went to a fancy private school which now charges over £30k for the pleasure. For lunch each day in the prep school she ate, wait for it. Plain pasta. As did 90% of her class. By 6th form she had graduated to cheese toasties and a chocolate twist. Sure there was healthy food but don’t kid yourselves the kids are eating it.

I think part of the problem is that what is considered a normal breakfast now - toast, cereal etc, was not a normal breakfast for our grandparents. It’s the big food companies selling us breakfast cereals and sliced white bread have told us these are good breakfast foods.

The western world is the main consumer of these products. Asian countries just eat food for breakfast - rice, curry etc. And lots of European countries have fruit, yoghurt, eggs and cheese.

In our house, and I’ll be honest, there isn’t a cereal we haven’t had at some point, we generally have porridge or Greek yoghurt with nuts, seeds and fruit or scrambled eggs on sourdough toast.

Of course, but the result for the unfortunate children is the same.

That’s on the school. Mine are at private school and they wouldn’t get away with it having plain pasta for lunch every day and a choc twist isn’t offered as part of a meal, but might be offered as a snack.

Mine went to private school and they regularly invited the parents in for lunch so that they could sample what the children were eating.
I had one that started private nursery not wanting to eat cheese and by the end of year six was having a self a cheese and toasty sandwich. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing when it’s used as a positive.

Ours is always curry. I hate curry. It used to be really good. But was so popular they were loosing money. So have cut back massively.

My friend runs breakfast club, I helped her costing it setting it up at Easter.

They serve:
porridge, weetabix, cherios or gf Rice Krispies, have non dairy milk option for dc with allergies
apple or orange juice
wholemeal or white toast with jam or marmalade
fresh fruit.

It’s free to all pupil premium children and the school waives the charge for others who they know need it and can’t afford to pay, others pay £3.50 per day and that includes childcare from 7.45am. It’s a good deal for working parents and jeans it’s not obvious who is getting it free either. I don’t see why it needs to be free for all

I took my kids once and they said they each had a bagel with jam for breakfast (that fake jam that is 99% sugar) so didn't take them again.

I do think they should offer healthier options - even just plain butter instead of jam and healthy cereal and brown bread, which costs the same as white, but I guess they probably want to reduce waste and worry the kids won't eat it otherwise.

@CrispEatingExpert

in my house we have always eaten any food for breakfast, i personally like curry and rice or egg drop noodles and spinach with miso. The former is leftovers, I make huge batches of dal and rice and freeze, the soup noodles take 3 minutes to do, Japanese recipe. My now husband laughs at my weekday breakfasts, we have more conventional bacon sandwiches or scrambled eggs on toast at weekends

Don’t worry they’ve survived to adulthood with those wonderful skin and teeth mentioned above and are all perfect weights, healthy and smart. Thanks for the nutrition advice though

Oh they’re clever these kids. They noted what the main meal was and told the lunch ladies that’s what they had had the day before so they could have the pasta. The chocolate twists were in the 6th form - by that point there was pretty much a free for all

IMO they shouldn’t be offering Rice Krispies and Cheerios and white bread.

For a lot of 'our Grandparents', breakfast was nothing at all or a piece of bread and dripping or jam whilst their father had bacon or sausages.

I'm assuming that Pain au Chocolat, croissants, bowls of hot chocolate, bread with ham, cheese and/or confitures, cornetto, granita, cappuccino, brioscia, panne, burro & marmaletta, etc, don't exist in your Europe, however.

My grandparents kept chickens and fed the children egg and soldiers in 1956. Post Warriors presumably it was more difficult during, But between the war even in central London, people kept chickens

This is where I feel it’s gone wrong, And I won’t comment on the thread of getting but people used to be embarrassed to have not fed their children and embarrassed to not put shoes on their feet. Why aren’t people ashamed of that behaviour any more?

My grand father was so poor as a child that he had cardboard in his boots to stop the holes letting in water. My dad had an outside toilet they shared with the family who had the top half of their terrace house in the east end. He shared a bed with his 2 sisters.

they were poor. Properly poor.

they were sent to school every day with eggs, bacon and toast. Never, ever nothing. And I dint think dripping.

Turkey dripping on toast with salt is the good of the gods however. Christmas Day breakfast 😍😍

You are welcome, any time!

people used to be embarrassed to have not fed their children and embarrassed to not put shoes on their feet. Why aren’t people ashamed of that behaviour any more?

Totally agree. The reason? Someone always steps in, free lunches, free dinners, whilst parents languish at home. If they were starving they’d work. And I’m not taking about those that can’t, it’s those who won’t.

Id like the luxury of staying home all day … both go to work to feed the kids and have a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs.

You take people independence away, they see it as an entitlement.

School breakfasts are way too unhealthy

cereal
toast
jam
juice

etc. a school breakfast provides over the daily sugar allowance fir children ( and I’m not a health freak etc)

sugsr sugar sugar. Will sound insulin and cause crash and cravings

should be egg /protein based

we should look to Japan on how to do it better

Agree, reduce the choices and they will eat the healthier breakfast in most cases (except arfid cases)

yeah... that was my thought. OP was astoundingly naive to write
children who have may had a relatively healthy breakfast at home may now opt eat UPFs at school with their pals instead.

The kids won't be choosing breakfast with pals instead, that won't be motivating, and they won't at baseline be having "healthy" breakfast at home.

Recently, Colleague did a series of workshops with urban teens from poorer backgrounds. Some of the teens appreciated free breakfast. They all turned noses up at free "healthy" lunch foods & went to McDs instead. Somehow they could afford that. Their baseline decision wasn't to choose free healthy food. If British primary schools only serve "healthy" foods then a lot of kids won't even eat it so won't have any breakfast and a lot of it will go in bin.

I'm having Flashback to after-school club in ~2008 trying to force my son to eat apple. He became furious & refused to ever go back. He already knew by then how much he didn't like apple but they wouldn't listen.