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.

All nurseries in the area have similar menus.
the problem here is that as parents we are paying a lot of money per day for a service that it is not good enough.

it won’t get better if we don’t complain. You walk around the streets in Scotland and half of the population is overweight.

At home, the parent can give whatever they want to their children but nursery/school should set the example.

I didn’t know this was a thing 5 years ago but I’ve taught mine to eat intuitively- I’ve given mine their dessert at the same time as their main meal so food doesn’t have hierarchy and no food is ‘bad’ they understand that some food means that we can’t have lots of them sweets cake because of the sugar and it makes our teeth bad and some we can’t eat as much as we like fruit and vegetables. Both children choose to eat other things on their plate first rather than the dessert or treat. I’ll give my eldest a snack plate and he’ll eat the carrots and houmous and will have a bite of the cake bar and leave it for tomorrow. My second child has a bigger appetite and he will eat more but he is the same. If you deny something they only want it more.

In my child’s nursery a few years ago nursery celebrated birthdays once a month (so say all kids with January birthday have a small party and cake on xx of Jan). The cake was prepared by nursery with reduced sugar and all allergies taken into account.
there were 6 birthdays in sept and 6 in October - I’m glad this was the policy.

Nothing wrong with plain yoghurt.

Most yoghurts marketed towards children contain nearly all of their daily sugar allowance (Petit Filous, munch bunch, frubes). I once had a child in my class eat two munch bunch yoghurts, a frube and a mr Kipling cake for lunch and this was in an affluent area! To be fair, she did love it but there’s no nutritional value in many of the packed lunches I see every day.

That’s a happy medium and solves the issue of birthday clusters while treating all kids fairly. Even better if they make a treat with the kids using natural/fruit sugars.

I’m 55 years old and when I was in primary school in Australia 45 plus years ago, my mum used to volunteer in the school canteen - she would tell me about the strict (it was just a government school) guidelines they had to follow with a limit on how much white flour was allowed in the kids lunches ie if they were making lasagne it would need to be mostly whole meal flour etc. the kids food in the uk is absolutely shocking - the government needs to be stricter on what’s being offered in educational settings

I am supportive of the policy. Perhaps if it helps set a tone of birthday celebrations being modest, no bad thing as an early lesson for life. In recent years far too many events have become overcommercialised and expensive.

Poor health outcomes are not of course unique to Scotland, but if I recall correctly, it does have some of the places with the shortest life expectancy in the UK.

YABU.

Childhood should not have all the magic and the fun and the whimsy sucked from it just because some kids parents feed them trash on the daily.

I wonder if part of it could be an allergies issue as well.

I recall bringing in two cakes (a regular one and one from the free from section) for one of my sons before they changed the rules in primary school and the teacher was really thankful because there were a few children who had allergies and couldn’t partake in the regular cake and they were often left out when parents sent in cakes.

We make lollies out of smoothies and give to kids when it's very hot. It cools them down when they are running about - indoors or outdoors it's hot. We also play with ice but it's hard to stop then eating it if they haven't had a lolly. We have no aircon. OK, so I am in London and it was over 30 quite frequently before the end of term. I know smoothies/ fruit juice isn't great either but the lolly moulds are very small, I would say max 2 tablespoons. I would hate parents to judge without bringing it up and seeing that actually we are doing our best for their children and not shoving Aldi's rainbow lollies, full of preservatives, colour and sugar, into their kids at every opportunity.

Surely, you can just say no to the cake. 🤷🏻‍♀️ There are lots of times when other children have things that your dc won’t be allowed to have. They need to learn that sometimes you say no. I wouldn’t be happy about the lollies at all though (if you mean like boiled sweets on a stick), I wouldn’t care about a ice lolly a few times a month on a hot day.

That said, eating cake a few times a month does not make anyone obese. We are not fussy about sugar or cake or sweets. My dc have certainly had them since nursery age and not infrequently.

But they also don’t eat loads of processed food, don’t regularly eat out or have takeaways. They eat lots of fruit and veg and are both very active. They are preteen/teens and slim and healthy.

That’s because on the whole, they eat a healthy nutrient rich diet and we are active as a family. Not because they were denied a bit of cake.

Is it a private nursery?

Cake constitutes all the magic, fun and whimsy of childhood? What overdramatic nonsense.

Sour-faced, miserable decrees like kids being banned from having a little piece of cake to celebrate a birthday is the nonsense here. It's along the lines of "telling kids the tooth fairy is coming or reading them a book by Roald Dahl is child abuse". If you want your kids to lead miserable lives devoid of fun by all means ban them from having cake, but don't ruin it for everyone else

They’re not banning it to the sake of it. They’re banning it because obesity and tooth decay in children is becoming an epidemic.

And that's because parents can't be arsed to feed their children a nutritious diet and instill healthy attitudes to food, like fun foods in moderation. Or clean their teeth.

I'm one of seven and we grew up without much money. None of my siblings are or were obese and none of us have a filling between us. We had cake on people's birthdays. This is entirely on parents I'm sorry

No one disputes a lot of it is down to the parents. However, it’s the children who will suffer, now and when they’re older. The state has the power to play a small role in tackling this while they’re young. You seem to think that everyone having the opportunity to munch on cake in nursery is more important.

Totally agree. It's equally unhealthy to ban entire types of food without teaching moderation. "You're never allowed sugar even at celebrations" is a totally unrealistic diet

Not having a little piece of cake in nursery will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the 30 pound toddler whose parents are giving her oreos and fizzy pop for breakfast

It might have the effect of improving some children’s diets. Or it might not. Will it cost anything to implement? Will any child be harmed as a result? No. Will eating pieces of cake less frequently suck out literally all of the magic, fun and whimsy of their childhood? I rather doubt it.

Agree to disagree. "Harm" prevention isn't the only principle that we should consider to make childhood good. Fun and magic and whimsy matter too, poo poo it if you want but those are the parts people look fondly back on. My reception class teacher gave us one chocolate finger per day and I've always remembered it as a fun part of the day

England guidelines start in Sept. Lots of new rules about cakes, desserts and menus. No cakes, desserts are plain yogurt only and the menu suggestions wouldn't be out of place at a Kings Garden Party.

No one is banning cake. There are so many opportunities to give your child sweets, it doesn’t have to be at nursery where many parents expect their child to eat healthy food. And what’s wrong with teaching children that there are many ways to celebrate and have fun.

That’s lovely.

I assumed ice lollies during recent hot weather?