"Only 1% of kids packed lunches healthy" says BBC breakfast news - surely this can't be true?

[Littleknight]

Just saw an article on BBC breakfast news that only 1% of children have healthy packed lunches. I can't believe this - surely it's more.
Come MN's lets set the record straight!

you may remember that choosing some numbers to add together to form a data nod to a leading question... does not constitute research just because you put a % at the end of it.

Costly
diversion
yes

Parents capable of making lunch
uk family resource

Like everything else with this government it's do as I say not as I do.

Just read the Independent article and someone mentioned broccoli spears. Oh what a sense of humour they must have

My DS has the same very day:

Cheese or Marmite sandwich/wrap (Marmite was frowned upon).
Cheesestring
Humzinger
Juice
Caroot/pepper/brocolli/whatever
Fig roll/fairy cake/biscuit

Some of his friends have the choc/crisps/crap sandwich lunch and DS reports back with a face.

No way my DC would eat brown rice and mango salad or some such poncey bollocks!

DD has school dinners and I am often about her meals. She has pizza, bread roll, mash, sponge cakes (carb, carb, carb, carb) and the veg choice seems to be sweetcorn every day BUT my DD likes a cooked dinner and rarely ate her packed lunch. I am also a bit cynical about the quality of the ingredients, particularly the meat. Is the roast meat still that reformed meat shaped into slices, covered in gravy that comes in plastic? What quality are the sausages/meat pie fillers etc. I suspect they are the cheapest of the cheap.

Broccoli spears . Surprised they don't include fois gras and caviar.

Anyway they should be eating seasonal and local, so what's all this nonsense about mango, and fresh tomato in winter ffs. They should be eating cabbage.

I've asked DS what other children in his class have in their packed lunches, so I can steal ideas and I have to say, that apart from one or two kids, they all have pretty healthy lunches.

He has to bring home the food he doesn't eat, so I know exactly what he has/hasn't eaten, and since hardly anyone has chocolate or crisps, he doesn't want them in his packed lunch (herd mentality and all that).

I think "experimenting" with lunch boxes is silly, there is too much risk of the child not eating anything from it and it would really defeat the purpose of "healthy" if they look at it but do not touch it.

I think the content also differs because of cultural issues. My Dcs would be fine with falafels because it is the type of food we would it at home anyway but they would struggle to eat mushy peas for example. I do not put crisps in their lunchbox because were I grew up we only had crisps if we were going for a picnic and it does not even come into my mind to do so. I would probaby not think twice about giving them some if I had had them myself at the same age.

sorry, posteed too soon, threestars, mine have to take back the non eaten food too which is one of the reason I like lunchboxes, I know exactly what they had and how to compendate in the evening. Also, if it happens to be a fruit they have not eaten, they usually eat it on the way back home .

would it OMG would eat of course!

My dcs have a dessert EVERY DAY in their lunch.

If someone gave me a pear and called it "dessert" I would feel totally ripped off.

I hate hate hate these kind of studies. Once again, parents get it in the neck.

it depends how high the bar is?

my kids both got cheese and ham on brown bread with olivio spread, a banana/pair and watered down juice.

I know some children will eat carrot battons but mine won't.

Are they planning on 'banning' 'unhealthy' foods from lucnh boxes then? I am sure I saw something about this on the local news at work last night. But of course I was busy working hard so I didn't see all of it

I think it's all starting to get a bit ridiculous tbh, this healthy eating lark. Dd1 has packed lunches mainly because I like to monitor what she is eating. Also because we have had trouble getting her to eat enough to maintain her weight since weaning. Atm, she is not too bad. Slightly under weight, but not alarmingly so. As she has been in the past. She is not under any specialist atm. She needs quick, high energy food to get her through the day and keep her energy and weight up. School dinners don't achieve this. She doesn't eat them.

The school have commented a few times that she is tired and lethargic after lunch. After telling them for the millionth time this is because she won't eat, they do supervise her more, and ensure she at least eats something.

There is no way her lunch box would pass healthy eating standards. But it is healthy for her. When is the government going to realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution to healthy eating?

Normally her packed lunch contains:

Peanut butter sandwhich on best of both bread (she won't eat brown bread)
2 home made flap jacks (with fruit and nuts)
A packet of raisins
Full fat yoghurt
Banana
Apple juice carton.

If I started messing about with falafel, avacados and god knows what, there is no way she would eat it.

On the occassions where she is not eating much and is becoming ill, we do put cakes and chocolate in, just to get the calories in there, in the form of something she will eat.

Today she has crisps. People seem to be panick buying bread around here, and having not had the time to go the supermarket her lunch is from the sandwhich shop. Which is crisps, cheese savoury sarnie with lettuce, capri sun, a blueberry muffin and a banana.

I so agree with you WRT ""There is no way her lunch box would pass healthy eating standards. But it is healthy for her. When is the government going to realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution to healthy eating?"" shineyAndMew.

BTW some foods are already banned, I have (well DH has as I could not be trusted to keep "cool" enough) had a chat with HT telling her that it was not to ennoy her or to purposly disrespect the school food policy (introduced AFTER DD1 had started school) but that we took great care into insuring that our Dcs had a balanced diet and were taking great offence to be told what we could or not feed them. On top of being swelt, naturally, they are the DCs that live te furthest away from the school who still walk there (1.2 miles, not very far but still more exercice than driven to school DCS) To the exeption of one teacher I mentionned in a previous post, nobody said anything to us when giving some "banned" food after that discussion.

DD1 is 11, her BMI is 13 (I think for children it is considered obese when over 19 but not quite sure) I am so not going to give her 0% fat yogurts!

QUite agree purpleduck! Dessert? Pear? Fark off! It has to have sugar and fat to be a proper pudd.

DS1 has the same lucnh, every day. Deviation is not tolerated

Philly cheese on home-made wholewheat bread

Red Grapes

Soreen malt loaf

Carton of smoothie or whole fruit juice.

Shiny, if your DS is tired and lethargic after lunch it may not be that she is not eating enough, just that she is eating too many white carbs. Some people juast don't metabolise them well, and there would be little worse for sending you to sleep in the afternoon than a lunch of starchy foods like pasta, potatoes or white bread followed by a sugary pud. She'd just have a massive sugar crash.

Saggyhairyarse, I agree about the sweetcorn, they keep churning it out because it's the only veg universally tolerated by children. I was furious when my son who was at junior school at the time, was offered potatoes AND spaghetti hoops, but then had to choose between peas or carrots and couldn't have both! What crap meal planning is that then? You should not be offering pasta and potatoes together in the first place, but to limit veg to a child who actually wants to eat it?!!

The other thing that annoys me is people getting their knickers in a twist over ketchup. Providing you buy good quality ketchup the ingredients are not remotely scary and your kids will benefit from huge doses of cancer-protecting lycopene, as if they were regularly munching through whole crates of tomatoes - and how many kids want to do that? All three of mine won't touch fresh tomatoes, or tinned.
Yes, ketchup is it's high in sugar, but we should be looking to cut their sugar intake in foods that are otherwise nutrionally empty, like sweets and biscuits before we ban that!

Tiggy, she wasn't eating any white carbs. She wasn't eating anything other than her banana.

slng: no the avocado seems to keep OK til lunchtime. It's quite tightly packed in a small tupperware. In a sandwich it is fine too. I do it in the morning, not the night before.

OrmIrian, yes, we could all put broccoli in to our chidlren's lunch boxes! and broccoli sales would go up, but consumption of broccoli would remain unchanged!!

I am going to start sending DD in with a lunchbox of plastic fruit

My dds have a varied and healthy packed lunch every day (although they never get onion and roast beef ) They used to have school dinners twice a week but I stopped them having then. They were so unhealthy.
Usual offerings were burnt pizza slices, chips, chipped potatoes, oven baked sliced potatoes (hmmm theme emerging here) and iced buns for pud. The portions were tiny, the veg overcooked and they were only allowed one veg choice even if they asked for extra veg! It was very poor quality and the menu was very misleading. The actual food served was nothing like the menu.

I would really resent the school interfering in my role of feeding my child when their own food options are appalling low in nutritional value.

I also feel that if the teachers would like to lead by example and clear the staff room of all the cakes, biscuits,coke and coffee and replace it with the cheap meat, overcooked veg and junk puddings they should feel free!

Blu - thanks! I usually do the packed lunch in the morning too. And I always feel like a deserve a medal/large brandy when all this pack-lunch-get-kids-ready-get-to-school-and-nursery-on-time-get-to-work-on-time business is over everyday. So if anyone dares to cast aspersion on my packed lunch I usually cosh them over the 'ead with a 'eavy-'eaded 'ammer.

I deserve, not a deserve.

Strix, I couldn't agree more! Many of the things on those suggested lunchbox menus seem to be processed food (note in tiny writing at bottom reads "The costing and preparation time associated with this product are based on the product being pre-made and purchased from a supermarket.")

I asked our school dinners provider (Sodexho, Joules menu) for a list of ingredients. They refused to provide it. So either they don't know what is in their food, or they don't want me to know. Neither of those possibilities is acceptable to me.

If the school wants to tell me what to put in my kids' lunchboxes, they best be prepared to present theirs to me for my instruction.

However, the Head Teacher is aware of nutritional persnicketiness so I doubt she she would really ever want to broach the subject with me.