To agree with the new guidance in Scotland to ban cake at nursery?

[AmericanMummmy]

The new guidelines from the Scottish government are effective today (1st August) - among other food restrictions, cake should not be brought into nursery to celebrate a child’s birthday (or any other reason). The goal is to fight childhood obesity and promote healthy eating.

I’m totally in favour of this and don’t understand the backlash! Everything I read on this topic is about parents and staff thinking it’s a huge overstep and sapping all the fun out of life, like kids need cake to be happy. If parents want to feed their child cake outside of nursery, that’s completely their choice, but why does it need to be at nursery too? I allow my 3 year old to have sweet treats on occasion (such as birthday parties or holidays/weekend activities), but it drives me nuts when he’s being offered cake at nursery (several times a month), and it’s always at pickup right before dinner time. They give him lollies on most days too from what he tells me, it’s just too much sugar!

Am I the only one who agrees with this guidance? Are there not other ways we can teach children to celebrate that don’t involve ultra processed sugary treats? No judgement to how people parent - and I love sugary treats myself- but I want to teach moderation and show that there are plenty of other ways to celebrate.

This. for some children playing with their friends at nursery and having them all sing happy birthday with a little cake is the closest they will get to a party. It’s literally a tiny little bit of cake. If u don’t want ur child eating it let the nursery know. They r hardly sitting 3 year olds down to massive Bruce bogtrotter cakes lol ! My sons nursery never ever give any sweet treats not even as part of meals so getting a little slither of a birthday cake isn’t something I can get in a tizzy over

The “banning” of birthday cakes isn’t happening in isolation. It’s part of a raft of guidance from the Care Inspectorate to encourage healthy eating in Nurseries. It has been going on for years and is constantly being adapted.

Obesity isn't coming in from sporadic pieces of cake at nursery.

I had school dinners in the days before "healthy" guidelines, and hearty, stodgy puddings doused in custard were a daily feature. Obesity was a non-issue and out of 60 in the year group, one person was "heavy" and today they'd look very normal against current cohorts and not an outlier.

The real difference between now and then is in snack culture, and children being taught to graze on "healthy" toddler snacks (or just standard snack food, but the existance of toddler puffs etc legitimises it). And activity levels.

DS' school has stopped children bringing in sweets for their birthday. I'm in favour. 30 children that's sweets most weeks then you had some whose parents would send them in with sweets because it was the dog's birthday, half term, school trip, school show, Christmas, Halloween , Easter, got back from holiday, it was multiple times a week and I don't want DS eating haribo etc so I would say no but having to say that 50 times a year was ridiculous when their pshe topic was healthy eating. School have now gone in with a 'healthy smiles' status thing so no longer permit children to have sweets at school. They also teach the children to brush their teeth properly with a dental nurse coming in to do workshops. They have a musical cake thing they bring out and the class all sing happy birthday.

Personally wonder why we target nurseries when as you say there was already guidance, and not the big food businesses…ahh, that’s right because it’s easier and cheaper for govt to tweak nursery guidance than do more consequential things.

Oh God, the killer of joy.

But it's no doubt the home diet and learned eating habits that are causing childhood obesity. I'm not saying the government should control what you eat at home, but I seriously doubt this law will have any material effect on obesity. It's a 'We'd better look like we are doing something!' law.

They wouldnt be dictating what your child eats though.
If your child is too precious to eat cake then you tell the nursery that YOUR child doesn't eat cake.
Dictating to other or indeed supporting dictation of others is actually lunacy.

It's hardly just down to cake .

I have more of an issue that they're explicitly not allowed to use butter on sandwiches, crackers etc and have to use spread instead.

Indeed. But to say that cake has been around for centuries so it can’t be a problem today is ridiculous.

Butter is definitely preferable and more healthy than spread

This is not what is making us an overweight nation.

I totally agree with your opinion , OP.

A small piece of cake to celebrate a birthday never made anyone fat, even if it was once a week. Obesity is down to daily diet and exercise levels. This really is a kill joy policy that suggests the politicians have too much time on their hands.

The government isn’t dictating what your child can eat either. They’ve issued guidance which I happen to agree with. Sucks to tell your child they can’t have cake when their friends are eating it. And if there is no cake to begin with, no one is disappointed because no one was expecting it!

I agree, partly because I think there's utterly no need for it.

You need to unclench

None of that stuff. All food has to have very limited sugar and salt content. No fruit yoghurts or anything.

But it's not what a parent feeds THEIR child, they're feeding other people's children as well, and that parent may be trying really hard to feed their child a healthy diet. In my area of England, there have been dietary restrictions on what children can bring in their lunchbox in some of our local schools for years, (no nuts, choc bars or biscuits, no sweets, no fizzy drinks) and there's been no drama.

My dc are teens now...they used to have cake most days when they were younger...I used to bake every week so we pretty much always had a homemade cake on the go and they'd have some for pudding. They are both a healthy weight. If their diet is healthy and balanced and they are active I don't think it's an issue. However I can't get worked up either way on whether nurseries serve it or not.

This is utterly ridiculous and completely joyless.

No crackers either, too salty.

But fruit yoghurt is just fruit and yoghurt? I think it's fair enough to suggest things but to make it law is ridiculously ott.

Agree. One child feels special, gets sung to, blows out a candle and everyone gets a cube of sponge. What’s not to like? Honestly some people on here seem to want a return to Puritan times.