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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to complain about the new healthy eating policy at dc's school

114 replies

FranSanDisco · 01/05/2010 19:07

Dc's attend the local state primary and on the whole it is a good a school. On Thursday they brought home a letter on a new healthy eating plan affecting packed lunches and snacks. I have no problem with the food they suggest for packed lunches but snacks include only : fruit, raisins and veg. No bread sticks, bread and butter or cheese which they were allowed before. Also, they intend to pre-designate certain pupils to open the lunch packs (Yr 5) and inspect them. Those failing the good food test will get a leaflet inserted and be followed up by letters/meetings for further failures - is this a little OTT or do I need a chill pill? I am really bothered by this interference and the fact that raisins aren't actually healthy for teeth so how can they ban bread sticks and cheese but OK the dried fruit. If you were me would you drop them a line?

OP posts:

didgeridoo · 02/05/2010 14:21

I think you should speak to the school. I think this whole "healthy eating" thing is way OTT. Some of my friends' kids eat the same "healthy" things all the time coz their mothers are so paranoid about food & it's policies like your school has that makes them that way. I agree raisins should be given sparingly & cheese is fine in a sandwich for lunch. I'd also like to know what the school themselves offer at lunch time as "healthy food". I bet chips, sausage, chicken nuggets etc are regularly served up. A cheese sandwich, especially if they have some salad in it, is more preferable in my opinion.

southeastastra · 02/05/2010 14:24

numpties who bring in cereal bars??? fgs

my son is allowed to bring in quavers! well i never fgs

BetsyBoop · 02/05/2010 14:25

sounds like the school are following the school food trust guidelines...

BrokenBananaTantrum · 02/05/2010 14:32

YANBU

I disagree with the schools policy on several points. First there is NO WAY other children should be "inspecting" lunch boxes. As many have already pointed out this unhygeinic(sp) to start with

Also I am concerned about how children are getting a warped image of how they should look and worrying about what they eat making them fat. I remeber watching a programme on TV where they did a study with 6, 9 and 12 year old girls and looked at how they percieved their own bodies and how other looked. They thought fat women were "ugly" "stupid" and other horrible things. This is a link to an article about it.

It makes me that we are living in a world that putsso much emphasis on being thin.

choosyfloosy · 02/05/2010 14:40

It sounds as if the school is going for the Healthy Schools mark or whatever it's called. I don't think the guideline is terrible tbh.

But the children policing other children's lunchboxes is a TERRIBLE idea and I would fight this tooth and nail. This happened at ds's school, the school council did a lunchbox audit and one boy got his lunchbox criticised in front of his whole class. He has some major allergies and his mother struggles to get enough calories into him; I don't want to describe exactly what was in the lunchbox but I can certainly say it was healthy in the context of his whole diet. If I were her I would have wanted to channel the Furies; on reflection I would probably have gone to the school council and tried to get them to think about what they had done. But you have a chance to try and stop this before it happens. I urge you to do so.

Undercovamutha · 02/05/2010 14:42

Totally agree with BloomingFlowers. The decisions I make about my childs lunch are influenced by my plans for tea, how much exercise has been done etcetc.

All children are different. Some walk a mile to and from school and are incredibly active, some have a car-ride to school and back and watch tv the rest of the time, some are very underweight, some have food 'issues'....... All these children will have different dietary needs IMO.

My DC are allowed a treat once a day. That might be one of the aforementioned snack-size muller crunch corners, or a small strawberry milkshake. The rest of the time they eat very healthily. DD knows that if she has a milkshake, then she has to have fruit for pudding.

The school have no way of knowing how we choose to manage our DCs diets, which is why they need to butt out. It drives me insane. And the idea of older children 'policing' the lunchboxes is just a joke!

howmuchdidyousay · 02/05/2010 17:14

this shows that lunchboxes can not be inspected, except with the permission of the child or with police present or parental authority.Print this off and send it to the head.

deaddei · 02/05/2010 18:19

I never sent snacks in with dcs- is this a new thing? They just had a lunchbox with a sandwich, bit of fruit and a cereal bar to eat at lunchtime.
Do they now get to eat things at breaktime too?

RubyBuckleberry · 02/05/2010 20:36

I don't think inspections are a good idea, but fruit for a snack is fine IMO. You can have two pieces of fruit and keep going till lunch.

And someone said fruit sugars can damage teeth - whatever next???

roundthebend4 · 02/05/2010 21:08

Just make sure none of your dc sit next to dd at breaktime she has either chocolate bar or cake or sometimes both as for her lunch box well

But i did have to get paed and dietican to wade in as school kept taking of her and sending notes home .Dd follows a high calorie diet for medical reasons and really does need eat stuff like that,

yet she now is worried that she will get fat becuase thast what they get told , chance would be a fine thing shes only 16k at 7 years old and i have a battle to conv9inc her thats its ok to eat what she does

TiggyR · 02/05/2010 21:44

Raisins are bad for kids' teeth and snack of protein is much more likely to keep them focused in the afternoon than something containing sugar anyway, so cheese would be better imho. This country is so pathetic these days. One minute the schools can fill our kids with an endless supply of cheap chemical crap, processed sugars and dog food, and the authorities don't notice or care, the next minute they are forcing us to feed them all on Trill. I despair, I really do.

omydarlin · 02/05/2010 22:10

my daughters school has gone for Health Schools award but they only give guidance as "no cakes, biscuits, sweets" etc in lunchbox and give their own snacks of fruit/veg out at break - i think the school is being OTT and maybe you should complain to the Governors. I would start spouting about the three Rs (rights, respect, responsibilities) too. IMO healthy schools initiative is not a bad thing but how it can be interpreted is!

GeekOfTheWeek · 02/05/2010 22:34

YANBU. Ridiculous to have lunch boxes policed.

What about school dinners. Pudding every day?

This isn't health promotion this is removing parents choice and imo goes against individualised care that is deemed so important in other areas.

Katisha · 02/05/2010 22:40

Yup we've just had all this. Kitkat is bad (chocolate) but cake is somehow acceptable.
And they want fruit AND veg sent in hahahaha

I sent a letter saying that knowing what my child will eat, I send in a packed lunch that is fit for purpose, and they will just have to trust me that I ensure he gets a proper diet.

FWIW I am NO fan of low fat anything. For adults or kids.

Anyway I think quite a few such letters got sent in as the school seems to have backed down.

The school doesn't seem the least bit concerned that pupils are flocking to the nearly sweet shop on the way in every morning...

Katisha · 02/05/2010 22:40

Sorry nearBY sweet shop

weblette · 02/05/2010 22:41

YANBU

Agree that the easy way to get round this is to insist that the older children ALL have food safety training.

clam · 02/05/2010 22:49

What chippingin said.
How very dare they? In fact, I'd almost be looking forward to the first letter home. Bring it on!

SE13Mummy · 02/05/2010 23:01

Personally I see nothing wrong with limiting snacktime foods to fruit/veg but maybe that's because I'm a teacher who covers other people's classes at a school where snacktime happens inside the classroom after playtime and I tire of having to argue the toss with children who bring in fruit jelly etc. on the grounds that it is 'healthy because it's fruit...". If your children eat their snack outside during playtime then I see no reason why the breadsticks etc. have to be outlawed. Either way I think that a piece of fruit/veg and water mid-morning is fine and isn't worth complaining about.

However, the appointing of juvenile lunch-box-police to monitor the contents of other children's lunch boxes seems over the top and unnecessary. Fine for the mealtime supervisors to discretely pop in a 'reminder' for the child whose parent has sent them with a family pack of Mars bars, three jellies and a can of coke for lunch but, aside from it being wholly inappropriate to have children police each other like this, why should the Y5 children miss out on lesson/play time to nose through other children's packed lunches? Very odd!

If you can fix a combination padlock through the zips of your children's lunchbags then I'd go for that. If not then I'd continue to send them with what you believe is a balanced lunch and either insert a fake 'special permission to deviate from lunchbox rules - contents not to be reported' notice or write to the Head explaining that you do not wish your children's lunches to be prodded, poked and inspected by 9-year-olds until such a time as s/he can confirm they have all received appropriate training on food hygeine and handling.

I'd carry on sending your children with the lunches you would like them to eat and await the arrival of a food-police letter whereupon you

SE13Mummy · 02/05/2010 23:03

not sure where the rest of my post went!

... whereupon you take great delight in addressing the issue with the Headteacher.

jurisfictionoperative · 02/05/2010 23:28

YANBU!
This makes me f livid! How dare schools take it upon themselves to tell parents what to feed their children, and to rifle lunchboxes looking for offenders!
I trained as a chef. I have studied food science and nutrition. I am more than capable of deciding what to feed my children. My daughter has special dietary requirements and I often have trouble getting food into her. Given the fact that my school recently overhauled hot dinners to be healthy, but still manage to include fish fingers, sausages and pizza, I would seriously take issue! It's about time that schools put a little more effort into actually teaching our kids and out of parents business. Anybody rifling my daughters lunchbox without my express permission would feel the sharp end of my tongue!

oldandgreynow · 03/05/2010 11:31

It is actually illegal to demand to see in a lunchbox.It counts as a search which the school are not permitted to do unless the child is suspected of posessing weapons or drugs.

biddysmama · 03/05/2010 11:33

the policies are put into place because some parents either dont know or dont care what their children are eating...

ive seen kids take a jam butty and bottle of panda pop in for their lunch

ChippingIn · 03/05/2010 11:39

and biddysmama - whose business is that??

Yours - NO
The schools - NO
Social Welfare - NO
The parents - YES

It's but a snap shot, one meal. MYOB.

biddysmama · 03/05/2010 11:41

not one meal... 5 meals....

jurisfictionoperative · 03/05/2010 11:42

Whatever parents choose to feed their kids, (and I'm not condoning mars bars and cola) it's still not the schools responsibility to interfere. Teach the children about healthy eating maybe, but 'stop and search' my childs posessions, absolutely not. the school my Ds started at, had an ofsted report stating that 'if you send your child to this school, they won't leave with an average level of exucation'. But they still saw fit to waste time and energy enforcing a no sweets and cakes ban. Did I send them letters telling them how I wanted my child taught? No. ( actually I upped sticks and moved schools, but that's another issue!)

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