Lunch box inspections-Nanny state gone too far

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Am I the only one in feeling annoyed when my 4 year old comes home with a sticker for having no chocolate or crisps in her lunchbox. I am a fan of healthy eating but if I choose to send her with a packed lunch surely it is up to me what goes into it. Cant stand the thought that she will be in effect punished by not having a sticker because I have put a small chocolate in for a treat-despite the 2 or 3 items of fruit she has as well. However what is really upsetting DH and I is that at 4 she is coming out with "too much chocolate makes you fat", "have sausages got fat in them?" etc at FOUR. We eat very heathily at home and I understand that the schools have got to try to educate everyone but I feel this is the Nanny State going too far or am I just being blardy minded?

Perhaps stickers should be done away with completely, then.

yes, stickers are too 'competitive' for this area where as people have said, use of this system is simply likely to alienate and single out one social group.....not fair on the kids.

I think it should just be an issue they discuss with the kids and make an important one within the school - don't think individuals need stickers....

There are a few primary school topics that teach healthy eating so no teacher really has an excuse for not knowing what makes a good, healthy packed lunch. It would be fantastic if we could teach more cookery but there simply isn't the time anymore and I agree, it's by far the best way to teach children about healthy choices. Banning certain foods or labelling certain foods as bad is a dangerous road to go down - we tackled the whole healthy eating thing on this theme of choices and we never at any point said certain foods were bad - we only pointed out that things like crisps and choc should be eaten occasionally. (We also discussed how home-made is better) Think stickers for NO crisps/choc is extreme - the school needs to take a more holistic approach and reward children who make the effort to bring a healthy, balanced meal and the odd bit of choc or cake shouldn't be a prob.

Cat64 - yes, you are absolutely right. It's something that really disturbs me about the modern education system, to be honest: the way it is now so hard for children to transcend their parents in school because their achievement and their parents' is seen as inseparable.
I know it is all based on research that shows that children do better if their parents are involved and therefore it is seen as healthy to encourage them to participate, and I understand that it's never going to be possible to separate their achievement from their home environment absolutely (as you say, even something like how quickly they get dressed after PE depends on how much effort their parents have put into helping them learn) but I believe there should be at least an aspiration towards a system where a child can still succeed regardless of their parents.
In the end, a child that is really determined to learn their spellings can do that alone, particularly as they get older, but a child whose parents refuse to provide healthy lunches is powerless to change things, so that's where I think the boundary should be.

Not got time to read whole thread, but just wanted to say that at my DD's primary school, sweets, chocolates and fizzy drinks are banned. A 4yr old was asked the other day to tell her mummy that sweets are banned when she was found to have a Fruit Winder in her lunchbox. The next day she had another one, and remarked that her mummy said it is 100% fruit and not a sweet!

Hmm...the ingredients tell a different story!
Fruit Winders win Tooth Rot Award

It's not just the fact that sweets, choc and fizzy drinks are unhealthy that they are banned in our school, but also because the children sometimes share things with their friends...and some of them are diabetics/have allergies, etc, so not worth the risk.

I asked this once before , but got no answer. What do the schools do with food they have taken off a child because it is deemed unhealthy? Does the child get it back?

But having said that I think a lot of people would say that raisins are fruit and a 'good food'. The dentist tells us not to let the children eat them too often as they are bad for their teeth.

Forever,

My kids schools banned fruit winders for that exact reason.

Foreverbubbles raises a valid point about allergies. Thing is that there is almost nothing that some child isn't allergic to. But ironically (as I understand it), you can't be allergic to sugar.
At DS's nursery all food brought in by kids was banned on the grounds that a 2/3 yo may have a violent allergy that hadn't been spotted yet.

I wonder if that is the endgame, where kids are no more allowed to bring food, than knives ?

I may not be a nutritionist and for that reason it is only the fizzy drinks that I confiscate as the school has a clear policy on not allowing fizzy drinks. We went through an awaful phase last term where kids were drinking huge bottles of caffeine drinks during their breaks and being literally uncontrollable and our withdrawl unit could not cope with all the kisd being sent as they were boucing of the walls.

Saltire, the unhealthy food that I confiscate is given back at the end of the day, as are all items that are confiscated apart from drugs and knives. However if the child is repeatedly bringing in fizzy drinks I ask a parent to come and collect them as the child is repeatedly breaking a school rule.

When it comes to lunch boxes, most of the kids are on free school meals so to be honest it is not an issue as they have dinners although I also see lots of kids try and buy their tea for at home with their free dinner money today. For example today I was sat with a child who ater half her snadwich and then put the other half in her bag along with half her cake and half her drink, she old me this was for her tea and breakfast as they have no food at home. When I asked her whatthey do at weekends she just shrugged her shoulders. I live in a town where children die of startvation and malnutrition every year.

Crikey, where do you live, Twinset?

My school has a smiliar healthy eating policy. I can see where they're coming from and understand that a lot of parents do need help educating themselves, but like many others I feel I'm perfectly capable of deciding what's healthy and what's not. Many of the schools percieved "healthy" foods are laugh out loud funny.

Blackpool

I would mind less about the nanny state intefering in childrens' lunchboxes if the nannny state provided proper exercise for schoolchildren nowadays.

I haven't read the whole thread but I am asking Primary Schools that I visit if they do a lunchbox inspection as I refuse to be dictated to regarding the content of my childs lunchbox.

If I want my child to have a bar of chocolate then she will, I'm sorry but I think it has gone too far.

I think Jamie Oliver has done a fantastic job with regard to school dinners but I don't think this is right.

So what do you think we should de when a parent thinks that it is her child's right to have a lunch that consists of 3 chocolate bars and a packet of crisps? And I'm not being argumentative here, what do you think a school should do?

And how do you sugest that largers schools monitor this sort of thing? I work in a school of 1300 kids. Keeping lists of how often kids have chocolates isn't really practical.

What can we do to help those kids who's diet is dreadful?

Bring back proper cooked school lunches that everyone has to eat.

We have these in school. The food where I work is excellent. Hot, tasty, good value, with excellent choice. I eat it myself. Choices last week included lemony chiocken, veggie lasagne, and tomato omlette. There is also a salad bar and wraps and bagettes are also sold

But parents/carers will say that they have a 'right' to send in a lunch box. What do we do then?

The three choc bars and the packet of crisps is no exageration. I saw it when I was on duty last week. Even with a range of excellent food, kids still have a lunckh of crap, and I then have to deal with the behavoural consequneces, as do the rest ofthe kids in the class. What price their 'rights' to a calm class room eh?

Just to add a different note, my DS is in Reception, and has packed lunches...I always make an effort for it to be healthy, always fruit or veg sticks, with a sandwich,yoghurt and fruit juice. But at 4 1/2 !! he is being laughed at by his peers and teased because there are no sweets/crisps/chocolate in them. So I know a lot of parents dont bother. What price peer pressure?

I don't have an answer for that MB but I just really take offence at being told what my child can and can't eat but you are right what else can we do for those poor children who don't have access to an adequate diet. Maybe I will need to get over it for the sake of the children who don't have the diet mine do.

I alsmot think that that is the only answer, and I do sympathse with parents who do give their kids a ballanced diet with the odd treat. you could, I suppose, save the treat for when they get home.

the problem starts when one kid has a choc bar, if one can have it, why not all. Kids tend not to be so good at 'It was just a treat' They see little X with a choc bar, and then pester their mum. then you can get into the competative stuff that mankyscotlass mentioned, the peer pressure to eat sweeties.

nd once you get to teenagers, and large numbers of them you have to have simple, obvious rules. Otherwise you get into endless arguments, 'It isn't a choc bar miss, it is a fruit and nut with choc chips bar' Repeat, ad nausiam!

I really do take your point MB and I can't come up with another idea it just really gets my goat that because other mothers can't feed there child appropriately I get told what to do I think I might be a control freak

But in the end school have to look at the bigger picture. We have to make rules that work for 1300 kids, not one or two.

For example a parent recently complained because her child was excluded for 2 weeks for pullning a knife on another kid. She maintained that we should have realised that he wouldn't have used the knife, it was 'just for show'. She felt she knew her child, school felt that they didn't care what she knew or didn't!

Out of interest MB what would you say is the proportion of bad lunchboxes v healthy lunchboxes?

To be fair, most of our kids have lunch, rather than a lunch box.

In secondary I would have to say that it is quite rare to see kids eating fruit. Following the healthy schools initiatve I would say it has gone up from about 10% to about 30%....stick a finger in the air type to gut feeling, no statistics sorta thing

Most kids eat shite if they bring a lunch box

So this luchbox inspection initiative is their to help the majority rather than the unlucky few?