DD school doesn’t allow packed lunch and she’s losing so much weight

[mamatothreebunnies]

My 9yo DD goes to a school where packed lunch isn’t allowed. It’s just an outright no and non negotiable. However, she’s extremely selective with food, (hate using the word fussy, but FUSSY!) and therefore loses a ton of weight during term time. I’ve spoken to school multiple times and their only help is to offer her plain pasta (she asked for this since she won’t eat anything else on school menu). But that means most days she’s eating a small hit of plain pasta from breakfast until 4pm. She comes out looking yellow and pale and I have to take her a full on packed lunch meal to eat on the very short drive home as shes starving. Over the summer break she’s looking healthy and has gained 3kg by eating healthy foods I know she likes.

the problem is she only likes food the way I make it (I’m honoured but it’s quite problematic). So she wouldn’t eat the school burger, or their bolognese, or their lasagne or whatever else. But would if I make it.

what would you do? I want to get her seen by a doctor who would maybe support us by something officially written to say if she could be allowed packed lunch. Obviously I wouldn’t send in nuts and if it’s a case of allergies they worried about I’m happy to go and sit in the car park every lunch time whilst she eats her lunch in the car and goes back into school.

im really worried for her and I just have let this go on for too long and don’t want her going through another academic year of poor eating during the day.

I wouldn't send her back there in September personally. They're not sufficiently bothered about her welfare. If she does have to go back, can she go home at lunchtime?

That. If she has a good breakfast and evening meal, and some plain pasta (plus eating normally at weekends) she shouldn't be losing weight, or looking yellow.

I'd have made a doctor's appointment long ago.

DD1 has a diagnosis of ARFID. We had a fabulous NHS dietitian who wrote letters to school etc. explaining the condition and basically telling them what to do. It gave considerable power to my elbow when discussing residential trips etc. For DD1 it is a stand alone diagnosis, no other sensory concerns or ASC characteristics. It is not easy to live with, she'd also go hungry rather than eat food that she saw as 'unsafe'. I really feel for you OP, it's grim when children can't eat. DD2 has always been an adventurous and cheerful eater, ARFID is something that you're born with not a behavioural issue.

Move schools to one that isn't so ridiculous.

I was a picky eater as a child - I am absolutely fine, nothing wrong with me, but would not have appreciated the forced dinners at school.

it would also indicate, quite worryingly, that thr school isn’t making adjustments for autistic students, who often can’t eat the school lunches

Private schools often say school meals are compulsory so that it’s cost effective.

Our youngest loved school meals pre-Covid, but post-Covid they obviously cut costs in the kitchen
(and boarders were always hungry) and she said the food was dreadful.

I just sent her in with snacks/ lunch to eat either with the others or in house and told the school that, I was sure they’d agree, the/my child’s health was paramount.

Challenge the school over this.

You are paying for this! That is shocking.

Your child is not the problem here. I ate a very limited range of foods as a child, my mother was the same apparently, and one of my DC (out of four, the others eat everything is the same). I leave her alone, she doesn’t need pressure or judgement and give her vitamins to add into the weetabix/pepperoni pizza diet she lives on.

If I went to the GP and pursued it, she could end up with a diagnosis of ARFID and all the monitoring that goes with it but I am not going to do that (I would if she was worrying underweight but she is just a little underweight now, she is filling out as a teen) as I know it is just a sensory thing she will grow out of.

In primary, they gave her a jacket potato with cheese every day as that was what she was able to eat. I also sent extra snacks, which was fine. She couldn’t afford to miss lunch everyone as if she did that then her appetite would reduce even more (which was always my experience as a child), she needs to eat little and often and I always top her up with high calorie foods at any time I can, doesn’t matter if it is good considered “healthy” I just make sure we keep the calories up. She will eat more when ready and older when her sensory needs change. I started eating at around 19/20 and did my mother when she was young and we eat everything now.

Please don’t make your DC feel like there is something wrong with her, and it could be the anxiety of the school environment and stress around lunchtime that contributes to her coming out looking ill - she isn’t in a supportive environment where her health, welfare or autonomy are respected, and it doesn’t sound as if you are trusted to make your own parenting decisions either as school think they know that is best and aren’t listening to you,

Do you tend to cook meals 'from scratch' (hate that term but can't think of a better one) OP?

I have always tended to as I don't like eg Dolmio sauces or jar curry bases etc. DS is used to proper slow cooked Ragu and rich, winey sauces. In comparison, school Bolognese and lasagne etc don't taste nice at all. He wouldn't even eat school pizza.

We were encouraged to use the free meals in the first couple of years of school but DS was only eating half a plain jacket potato (he didn't even like their cheese because it was mild and tasteless). In the end we switched to packed lunches and stuck with it.

If kids are getting a good diet at home, school lunches really aren't important.

I recognise that some schools do better hot lunches than others, but in our case they were God awful and certainly not something parents needed to force on their kids.

Look at diagnosis for AFRID. Please Google.

I used this to demand change. Once it was a medical condition it was noted and changes made.

in fact I didn’t even need to get it diagnosed, just said this is what’s going on, I’ll formalise it if I have to but shouldn’t you be more accommodating?

I looked into this for my dd and didn’t pursue in the end as she won’t engage with a private therapist or nhs CAHMS. Dd likely has ARFID, now tipped into anorexia due to anxiety. You can get a private diagnosis from CAHMS at The Priory. Idk if they have a lower age limit though, dd is 16, was 15 at the time. They sent me a referral form for a GP will need to complete. To expedite this, you could make an appointment with a private GP.

As your dd isn’t eating at all at school in the day, I very much recommend that you get this sorted even if it means changing schools. Your dd may eventually get used to eating less, which could lead to complications and potentially anorexia, which can be functional at first rather than dysmorphia. I now trace dd’s anorexia to September last year when she stopped eating lunch, the reason being that several girls in year 11 don’t eat lunch. Dd is likely autistic and if so, this will have been part of masking.

DS won't touch water and every year at nursery and we'd had the same arguments and he's almost 6 now. He's not got an ARFID diagnosis but he was diagnosed ASD aged 3 and we've got his limited diet in his feedback report so thankfully it's documented but for us they only took us seriously when DS was admitted for severe dehydration.

They'd mistaken sips of water to be a keen interest, when really after he'd sipped it and found out it was water he was strongly and evidently put off drinking from their cups ever again.

This was in nursery. School have been much better but I went in a bit over the top justifying why he won't drink water at first to find out they were actually quite cooperative and I didn't need to be quite so on edge thankfully.

Yup (although some kids are like this even with siblings). The kid clearly knows that she can starve herself and get what she wants after school. This needs taking in hand now.

All children deserve to know there's food security at home whether that's I'm volume or to cater to their sensory needs or so they don't starve from OCD or ARFID.

If you're suggesting that this child is starving herself because she is manipulating adults to get her own way that is absolutely vile and I hope you never have to be involved in the care of someone with an eating disorder.

But just to educate you a little bit, eating disorders have a higher chance of remission when there is food security and a reduced stigma around all kinds of food. Kids with eating disorders should be able to eat food freely without any commentary or judgement of their food choices. It's actually crucial to their recovery.

You might not have known this so I hope that now you do you'll pause for a moment if you come up against this in future.

Can you not put some sneaky snacky food in her bag? Obviously not a hearty meal, but just something to tide her over, like a muesli bar etc.

No, not 'anyone would look yellow' at all.

You really need to take her to the doctors and they'll explain that this isn't normal.

Start by talking to the doctor about it and see what they say, rather than just going so you can get some sort of letter for the school.

I mean obviously you might get a letter anyway, but the main concern should be the probable jaundice.

I agree with other posters that if this is causing health issues, reasonable accommodations have to be made. DS2 had ARFID and it was phenomenally stressful getting him to eat anything at all. If he'd had to rely on school dinners, he'd have wasted away.

If school won't budge, you need to try and get dense calories into her at breakfast. Try a small milkshake made with a whole small banana, a spoonful of peanut or almond butter if she likes them, some drops of vanilla essence, honey and full cream milk. A slice of homemade madeira cake cooked with added almond flour, butter and extra eggs, or french toast, or fried egg bagel thin with butter or a cheese toastie or PBJ seeded bagel would all have very high calories and high protein which should keep her going.

Maybe get to school five minutes early and add a small nutritious snack then - a low sugar flapjack or wholemeal cheese sandwich and some sliced fruit or a smoothie.

Thank you for this post. The hours of 'advice' I had to endure from know-alls who had no clue about how to handle ARFID just added to an already very stressful situation.

@mamatothreebunnies please ignore advice from people who have no experience of this.

We had a school that had this policy. Within a couple of weeks they asked us to start sending packed lunches. They couldn’t stand watching her starve and dealing with her behavior in the afternoon when she was starving wasn’t good either. if they had not, I probably would have gone the GP note route, but I did want to try getting dd to eat the school food.

It was the only thing I didn’t love about the school when we picked it, but I also didn’t realize the extent of DD’s condition when we did.

dd was eventually diagnosed with arfid. She is one of those children who just won’t eat.

our school had this family meal ethos. It made sense in theory, but it just doesn’t work for some children.

If you would ‘sit in the car park’ I assume you don’t work and have time to do this? If that’s the case why not take her home for lunch? Lunch time at school isn’t compulsory - it may be old fashioned but not I heard of.

Snacks - if you know what they dish out, put some in her bag!!

They won’t know if she was in the queue or not.

Although I disagree with the lunch arrangements at her school I also feel that this should not be having such an impact on her weight and health.
Only 5 out of 21 meals in a week are had at school. A decent breakfast, after school snack and dinner should be maintaining her weight.
Does she eat any fruit or veg to have as snack at break?

I agree with this. There surely must be something she must like even of she doesn't like most things. I think you should see if there's a wider issue at play

But She does eat lunch? She just eats it later in the car.

It's a private school. You are paying them. They can make a reasonable adjustment for your child. Whatever her reasons for not touching their food. Whether it is Autism. ADHD. Arfid. Or plain old anxiety and hatred of school food.

You tell them she is taking a packed lunch. And that's that. Start the term as you mean to go on and tell them to MTFU.

You should not need a doctor to write to them to back this up.

I think in school a meeting with the head of pastoral care is required, they really need to know your child is struggling with meals.

One of my dc is the same, she is an identical
twin and there is such a difference in attitude to food between the two. She is quite keen on snacks though and they have three breaks a day at school so we make home made protien balls together to get her through. Oats, ripe bananas and peanut butter and dipped in chocolate. I serve dinner family style so on big plates and you help yourself. She naturally gravitates to healthy choices so will have no lots of protein lamb chops/ chicken/ beef but no sauces and heaps of veg or salad.

In an ideal world she’d just eat the lunch but she’s always been picky even as a baby. I just make sure she has a good diet at home and calorie dense snacks for school.