...or should this be in AIBU?

[PrettyCandles]

Am I Being Unreasonable:

To feel that school is overstepping the mark in the way it is teaching the children about healthy eating?

I believe that it is my job as a parent to feed my children well and to frame their attitudes toward foods. I do not welcome their school's intereference, labeling foods as 'healthy' or 'unhealthy'. I want to choose what prejudices my children learn! Let them eat broccoli because they enjoy it, not because it's 'healthy'. Likewise, let them eat cake and toffees without any guilt or anxiety becasue they're 'unhealthy'.

We took the children to a Pick Your Own farm. It was supposed to be a fun day out - with a bit of education slipped in subtly. Instead they were worrying whether we had taken them there to be healthy, whether it's OK to make beetroot toffee, and surely we shouldn't be eating this food because it's covered in mud (they'd also had a visit from some sort of nurse, teaching them to wash their hands).

This is the school that takes huge pride in its school dinners, healthy snacks, some sort of healthy eating award, forbids birthday cakes...and allows the PTA to sell Krispy Kreme Donuts in the playground and teachers to hand out sweets on their birthdays at hometime.

The preaching from schools about healthy eating annoys me also. Where I work the staff room always has a good supply of cakes and biscuits and I've never met a teetotal teacher yet!

I agree Preety.
Admirable goals but in the hands of the wrong people who haven't thought it through it can go wrong.

A teacher I work with was telling me about a course they had done on this topic. One of the exercises was to read the labels on a heap of 'bad' food (of the kind that kids love) they had brought in.

At the ned of the course,they were urged to take all this food home with them 'as we won't need to use it again'.

totally and utterly agree

in fact I find myself saying more and more 'everything in moderation' to DS who comes home with crackers like 'sweets are bad for you' .. yes, thinks I, but a little of what you fancy does you good

a good healthy balanced diet incorporates sweet things .. ban things and they become delectably inticing

They have to teach about healthy eating -it's part of the curriculum:
"During Key Stages 1 & 2 pupils should be given the opportunity to develop the following knowledge, skills and attitudes.
Key Stage 1
? Know that there is a wide variety of foods and that choice is based on
needs and culture
? Know that food is needed for health and growth and that some foods are
better than others
Key Stage 2
? Know that diet is a combination of foods, each with different nutrients
? Know that nutrients have different effects on the body, and the amounts
in the diet, and balance between them, can influence health (e.g. sugar and
dental health)
? Know how to handle foods safely

Birthday cakes are a pain because they are messy and waste time - it's much quicker to hand out sweets - our school has suggested banning them, but there was a massive protest from parents. As for the Krispy Kreme doughnuts, it was probably a sop to the PTA so the school could go on banning unhealthy snacks to be eaten at school.(The PTA at our school is selling them - our head didn't want to, but the infant school head had already said yes & it's a joint PTA)

As for what goes on in the staff room or the teachers' private lives that's none of the parents' business, but fwiw, I know several teetotal teachers & mostly they are very healthy eaters.

All the kids in our school have school lunches, so everything is well vetted and sanitised.

I really object to not being allowed salt on my own food. I now have an illicit salt shaker in my pigeon-hole.

Yes, there are always biscuits in the staff room, usually eaten by the same people who are then giving points or stickers for children who have only brought in fruit.

Somehow, the rational and sensible guidelines that RustyB has outlined have lost a lot in translation.

It saddens me to hear the children describe their home-made birthday cake as 'unhealthy' when I know it's perfectly healthy! Especially as I decorate the children's cakes in marzipan only, without any Regalice - which is exceptionally unhealthy.

They seem to be being given the message that sugar or sweet tastes = bad, unhealthy. Which is not a rounded perspective at all.

I don't think schools are 'overstepping the mark'. But the whole healthy eaying messages certainly get twisted along the way.

In the Science curriculum, we teach about the food pyramid. The bulk of your food should be complex carbohydrates, followed by proteins and fruits and veg. There is room at the top of the pyramid for sweets and cakes.