Is chocolate unfairly demonised as unhealthy?

[JambonetFromage]

DC are supposed to take a "healthy snack" into school for break.

What I send varies depending on what's in the house - sometimes it's something like a babybel, ricecakes, fruit etc. Often things which are questionable like hobnobs, banana bread, malt loaf, flapjack. But it's all been fine.

This week I sent them with homemade chocolate cornflake cakes - these were just cornflakes mixed with some melted chocolate. DC came back with a letter from school saying these were unsuitable snacks.

Now I'm not trying to claim that chocolate cornflake cakes are "healthy" but I don't think they're nutritionally any better/worse than a flapjack or a slice of maltloaf which I've sent the DC with on many an occasion. I think the problem is one contains chocolate and the others don't.

AIBU to say that chocolate isn't evil and something containing chocolate doesn't necessarily make it less healthy?

I'm not saying the school should have allowed it (generally they're quite laid back - crisps seem to be the favoured snack amongst a lot of DSs friends).

I just think it's interesting that it's the addition of chocolate that seems to be the thing that's triggered the letter home when there's been no issue with stuff which I think is nutritionally no better and quite possibly worse.

Obviously you can't expect schools to do a full nutritional assessment of every snack sent in, and someone said earlier, it's perhaps just an easy place to draw the line if you're trying exclude things like Mars Bars.

But it does seem to reflect a wider way of thinking that chocolate is seen as decadent, indulgent, a treat in a way that other sweet foods aren't. Like somehow a chocolate milkshake seems "worse" than a strawberry milkshake when there's unlikely to be any difference at all. A chocolate cake "worse" than a victoria sponge when the only difference is cocoa powder.

Most kids eat far more than the recommended amount though. And I thought it was meant to be non transfats?

Chocolate is very calorie dense and has minimal health benefits. Chocolate cornflake cakes made with cheap chocolate & usually butter/golden syrup are incredibly unhealthy! Lovely treat at Easter but not a playground everyday snack. Terrible for their teeth & weight. This is why so many kids are fat - rubbish parenting.

In dc's school there are cases where the parents are fat and the kids are healthy weights, or the parents and kids are both fat. It can be lack of education in some cases, or a breaking the chain thing coming down from grandparents.

Strawberry and banana ones are usually worse, full of artificial additives and colourings, (if purchased).

I agree that cake being loaded with sugary jams etc are not superior at all. I think it is easier for some people to justify what they eat by finding fault with others stuff. I believe all is fine in moderation. I remember a woman at work who was very overweight, and would lecture healthy weight colleagues on what we were eating. I had a small chocolate bar as a treat, and she came straight over and starting listing dietary unsolicited advice!🙄

I don't know why this thread has popped back up again?

Anyway...while I can understand why schools have a blunt approach to what constitutes a healthy snack, I think as a wider society we get FAR too hung up on individual foods being "good" or "bad". I'm still getting DC getting angsty about their school snacks and the idea that they're "not allowed" e.g. a flapjack with chocolate chips.

DC is slim and active and has a brilliant diet in the round, yesterday they ate:

-porridge with banana, blueberries and and mixed seed sprinkle
-banana chips for snack
(school lunch)
-rice cakes for afterschool snack
-lentil and chickpea rice pilaf with spinach.
-homemade apple crumble with greek yogurt.

So really I don't lose any sleep about chocolate cornflake cakes.

(my other DC has ASD+ARFID and lives on beige food, so swings and roundabouts).

Demonising individual food is just daft. And kids need energy! I do some endurance sport and everyone is OBSESSED with rice krispie squares because they're such great fuel. If kids have an energy-dense snack before zooming round the playground for 20mins I fail to see a big problem.