To think banning fried eggs is a step too far?

[NameChanger2026]

Whilst I agree with most of this, what’s wrong with an egg in decent oil?

I agree with this.

It’s the processed food not a bit of frying or puddings that causes a problem.

You can see kids who look like they’ve been inflated rather than simply being a bit overweight and that’s processed food. Puddings don’t cause that.

I also think artificial sweeteners are a big problem and need to be more discouraged than sugar.

It was about 40 years ago that Margaret Thatcher's government changed school meals and allowed contacts to be bidded for by private companies, who fought to provide the lowest cost meals to increase their own profits. The nutritional requirements were scrapped as well. To get back to the standards of the 70s would cost a lot of money - absolutley money well spent but where will it come from?

I think all the healthier alternatives are a step forward. My concern is whether the children will actually eat it. I’d so love my daughter to tuck into a chickpea curry, I’d be over the moon if she loved this sort of thing.

I couldn’t agree more! Artificial sweeteners are a bugbear of mine. I’d much rather have a bit of sugar that artificial sweeteners. Everything in moderation. The problem is that too many people now think that the low/no sugar option is healthy and can be eaten in vast quantities. It’s not a popular opinion, but I’m convinced that in years to come we will realise that sweeteners have done more harm than a bit of sugar.

Completely agree with both, if kids have the sandwich option at my child’s school they’re then not allowed the dessert all the other kids have, only a yogurt or fruit, so a lot of kids choose the main meal to only eat the dessert.

Of course none of these guidelines mention all the additional cakes and biscuits given out as rewards in the classroom either.

The only education they’ve received on healthy eating was not to eat any fats or sugar at all, it took ages to convince my child to go back to their already balanced diet at home! Banning fried eggs solves nothing.

Original shredded wheat bite size is also healthy.

Muesli usually has lot of sugar.

Agree, but we're completely deluded if we think 5 meals a week during termtime from school catering is going to achieve that.

Where the hell are the parents in all of this? And also surely we need to ban any kind of convenience store or takeaway on a route to school if we're going down this route...

I don't think our school give out sweets etc for rewards.

But denying pudding to the sandwich kids is just going to encourage packed lunches. BTW i don't agree with the lunch box police either.

Stop and think that though banning shops on route to school.
You realise in some towns that would effectively close every small independent shop?

People on here always comment that there wasn't any fat kids in the 70s and 80s.

Those skinny kids are now the fat middle aged adults that are walking about.

I think the schools should be setting an example of a healthy diet. No one needs a stodgy pudding after lunch every day. Yes there are the arguments that it will be some child's main meal of the day so should be something they'll eat without fuss, or some children get fed rubbish at home so it makes no difference trying to get a healthy meal into them at school etc. But why should the other kids be getting into bad eating habits due to other kids having less optimal diets for whatever reason? Of course most kids like an unhealthy meal now and again, just like a lot of adults, but it shouldn't be the default every day option.

Yes, because diets and exercise levels have changed since then. Skinny kids in the 70s haven’t suddenly become obese because they had a bit of sponge and custard as a child. We are moving less, eating more, and increasingly relying on UPF. The problem with obesity is now across all age groups.

This is true, boomers example are the most obese generation we’ve ever known.

we have UPFs and commercial food production, but the 70s had smoking, asbestos, dangerous work environments, poor road safety, constant fried food and lead poisoning.

every generation has its threats, obesity is really a pretty light one in comparison.

I was just going to say.

To go to my son's school, most people have to walk through the ''main area'' of the village which can include post office, pub, chippy, convenience store and several takeaways depending on which way you are coming from.

For school meals we always used to have a variety of afters following the main meal such as jam roly poly (suet based) with custard, rice pudding, sponge pudding with icing on and either normal, pink or chocolate custard, bananas and custard, rhubarb crumble and custard, ginger pudding and custard. The first course was always good with all the different meats, fish or sausages, mashed or chip potatoes and fresh vegetables or baked beans. Fish fingers and cheese pie were favourites. The only bad thing was liver which usually had arteries and veins in and is still making gag whilst I'm typing this!
We never had pizza, pasta or curries, beef burgers or anything remotely foreign, but all British foods.
This was the 1960's and 70's and were all healthy and still are today with only a handful of people in my entire school year presently to have died off (and mainly down to accidents). I can only put that down to good eating that we had, as, when we got home, our mums would have not dissimilar food on the table for the evening meal yet again. We were all skinny and quite active then and generally still are!
Adding wheat to too many things, removing sugar and salt and reducing sizes of tinned goods (from 454g to 375g for example) now makes you eat more, whereas before 1 tin would have been enough for two people but now you have a can each. Using oil instead of animal fats may be good for arteries but might not be good for making energy that is used to be more active, increase metabolism and reduce weight.

Poaching is better.

We have to also remember that back in the day there was no choice of main course either. Sometimes it would be something really revolting and you just had to either get on with it and eat it or leave it and just have the pudding. Now there is a lot of main course choice and a pudding shouldn't be necessary to fill kids up if they are having a decent sized portion of food. Puddings were a nice part of school meals in the past but maybe because people weren't having them at home after every meal? Surely if parents feel a pudding is important they can feed their kids one for dinner at home.

I agree on the school vs home-life point - even during term time the vast majority of kids are going to eat at most half their meals a school, and for most kids it'll be five out of twenty in a week. Take holidays into account and I guess that your typical child eats about 20% of their meals at school. So why so much responsibility gets loaded onto schools I don't really know. It should be the case that even if schools basically said 'Look we'll make sure that your children get enough calories for the time they're here, a few vitamins n'that, and the food won't kill them', that it would still be fine because the vast majority of learning about food should be at home. And yes I realise that the word 'should' is doing some heavy lifting there as lots of parents are just useless, but why that means it should automatically be schools that become responsible for sorting it out isn't entirely clear to me

Same. Except last week the 'pudding' for fish and chips day was fruit so we just had a packed lunch that day. My child eats relatively healthily and plenty of veg because I insist on it as much as possible, but she has a real thing about fruit so thats another day off the list every 3 weeks with the menu rotation.
My eldest was also complaining how the food is badly cooked so she barely had any school dinners.

I don't think schools are fully responsible for sorting out a bad diet, but neither should they be adding to the problem and/ or potentially making the diets of those who eat a balanced diet out of school worse or normalising a bad diet.

Chickpea curry is one of my DC's favourites and improving healthy choices will be great for him because he'll actually eat them.

The other is incredibly selective and has ended up eating the same sandwich option for 90% of school meals - every time they adapt the menu to be healthier what he actually eats gets more restricted because he won't touch most of it.

I guess the average child is somewhere in the middle, but I'd love to know whether changing menus tend to get nudge them towards trying healthier foods or nudge them into a more restricted diet.

But that's due to their diet now. Not 30 years ago.

It's not just school meals. People in the UK in general eat loads of UPF rubbish and takeaways. Many mums don't know how to cook from scratch using fresh ingredients, and many don't have the time either. They need educating on how to do home cooked meals that are nutritious and quick to prepare.

That was my point - it's a waste of time improving school meals if children just stock up at the chicken shops on the way to/from school.

Not sure whether yet another chicken shop is a good thing for towns but here we are.

If these are the guidelines, why is it possible for my dd to be allowed to purchase a choc chip cookie at break, an icecream and a soft drink at lunch, and a “chicken meal deal” which is basically quite poor quality unhealthy chicken wings and salad or a Jumbo sausage roll and nothing else?

Occasionally she’ll have a pasta pot - fairly sure that is white pasta and a basic tomato sauce.

Secondary school is surely the problem here…