I despair - the healthy eating message in schools

[FurtherSupport]

I really have tried with my DC. I believe the best diets have everything in moderation, lots of fruit and veg, plenty of protein, fats so long as it's not so much it's you overweight, avoid processed food and artificial rubbish and include minimal sugar and refined carbs.

I'm in no way obsessive about it, but this is what we aim for.

The message from schools is all low fat and replace sugar with sweetners. At the school where I work they serve an ice lolly that is basically coloured flavoured water as dessert. It's low in fat, sugar and salt and therefore must be healthy.

DS1 is just back from cadet camp and thrilled to tell me how unhealthy the food has been because he's had a cooked breakfast every morning before going out on the moors for a long active day. OTOH, he thinks (despite me continually telling him otherwise) that the fruit cola they sell at school is healthy because it says on the bottle it contains one of your five a day

I think that we have lost the plot over healthy eating, including schools.

It has left children totally confused. I was amazed to give a yr4 class a picture of an empty plate to draw a healthy meal. No one had a recognisable meal although the majority had a piece of broccoli among other oddments!
A few years ago they would have had the confidence to draw a favourite meal - a spaghetti bolognese, roast dinner etc.

I work in a school, and the problem is the amount they have to spend- it's pitifully small. It's the one thing that puts me off sending DD here. She has a v healthy diet but she wouldn't be able too here. The food is appalling.

No, I don't think that's it Holberg. Yes more money could improve the quality of the meals but it wouldn't help if the same rules and are still applied and the same misguided idea of what are good and bad foods used.

Most of the problem is not the food served in schools but the completely wrong information children are taught regarding what constitutes a healthy diet. They get that whether they eat a school meal or not.

Have you looked at the guidelines schools have to follow in producing meals? It's bonkers. There are so many rules it must be near impossible to follow, and little to no money to do it with.

Yes, that's exactly my point avocado, the guidelines are just plain wrong.

Some schools manage it. I know one that cooks from scratch using locally produced food. Parents can book a meal and come in and eat with their children. Many of the staff have a meal.
That is a good test - if the staff eat them they are good, if they don't they are rubbish.

Yes I know Mehitabel, but this isn't really about the meals provided in schools, it's the food education schools provide I object to, which still peddles low fat and artificial sweeteners

I had a feeling change for life had some iffy sponsorship behind it. Danone (sugary yoghurt?), Britvic (sweet drinks, sweeteners?) and Mcain (chips) are just three of the sponsors. nothing particularly healthy about any of them..

thanks for the link future..

oops, further..

I know that FurtherSupport - my example was that schools can and do things differently.

I would support a campaign. I don't know where it all went wrong? I think it's that children who eat full-fat at school and then go home and eat greasy burgers and chips etc will become overweight. May be that's why low-fat was introduced to help those families.

I think it's more sinister than that Pug. It's the vast increase in sugar in our diets that has lead to obesity IMO, nothing to do with fat. Fat intake is self limiting because it makes us feel full, unless it's combined with sugar, when many of us have no stop button.

The increase in sugar intake was deliberately brought about by the food industry, which understood long ago that it's addictive and also knew that sugar was more "bad" than fat. This was known in the 1970s but the research was all sponsored by the sugar/food industry, so never made public.

Sugar is addictive- that is where we went wrong.

Agree. Change 4 life is bollocks and very patronising. DDs school meal provider has won awards for the quality of its food but still think it's ok to give kids crappy desserts like cookies, jelly, custardy cake. Meals seem to be centred around refined stodgy carbs, (bread pasta rice) with veg offered up on the side. I get the impression the school doesn't see it as their business as it ticks all the boxes so must be ok. DD has packed lunches.

And the really sinister part is that now the research is public and we do know what the food industry has been up to for years, we're still allowing/encouraging them to peddle the same messages in schools.

Oh I am so with you! Low fat bollocks and tiny portions. When I read out the menu choices it's very difficult to hide my disdain from the children. In our area they "centralised" school meals now everyone gets the same from a few kitchens, instead of having real cooks in each school.

The staff test is right. Five years ago I ate with the kids every day. Now you couldn't pay me to eat what they are served.

OK if sugar is the problem how is trying to change the healthy eating campaign in schools going to help? They need to ban glucose syrup etc and all cheap confectionary, carby donuts etc need to be removed from all supermarket shelves. Unless such foods are removed from the market there's no hope. People are addicted but have 24/7 access to crap food.

That's true Pug but if we're going to have nutrition education in schools, it should at least be giving correct information, which ATM it doesn't.

Basically they need to remove all processed sugar from manufactured food stuff. That's where the focus should be and healthy eating in schools would naturally follow. To do this though would be like a Soviet State I can't see how this could work in modern capitalist societies.

Yes Further I agree it's pedalling a lie to the next generation and that does need to change.

I haven't RTFT yet but just wanted to recommend having a look at Brazil's healthy eating guidelines. They are really intetesting and support/sum up a lot of what's wing discussed here. I'll try a link in a minute but it probably won't work because I can never seem to do them on iPhone!

www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/Brazilian-Dietary-Guidelines-2014.pdf

The rules are pointless anyway. at first glance they look good. but reading between the lines, it still allows for a lot of shit to be served.

ultimately one of the ways to improve them would be to have more good quality meat. not the sausages/mince but actual meat. actual meat is more often than not served as a pasta bake or a curry or a stew which allows it to go further. and gets padded out with potatoes or gravy or a sauce.

The reason for the stodgy pudding g o's to fill the kids up because there's not enough fat or protein in the meal to actually do that. so Instead they serve bread along side the meal and give then. A cookie and custard.

It worked! Sorry, it's a long one bit well worth a read. Totally agree with everyone here- I'm a GP and had been pedalling the "fat is bad" message for years, as I'd been taught to.

I now accept that that is basically total rubbish. Moderate amounts of full fat all the way and avoid sugar and processed foods as much as practicable.