Are we overcomplicating kids’ lunchboxes these days?

[Alyah]

I’ve noticed lately that school lunchboxes seem to have become a bit of a competition. Everywhere I look online, there are perfectly balanced bento boxes with shaped fruit, colour-coordinated snacks, and little motivational notes.
When I was at school, it was sandwiches, crisps, and maybe a piece of fruit — simple and fine. Now it feels like if you don’t send your child in with a worthy meal, you’re somehow not trying hard enough.
I do understand wanting kids to eat healthily and enjoy their food, but is it just me who thinks we’ve gone a bit overboard? I sometimes wonder if it adds unnecessary pressure on parents (and maybe even on the kids too).
What do others think — is this just the new normal, or have lunchboxes turned into another area for quiet competition?

What happened to school meals? My children all have school dinners and love it. Mind you, we may have the best school cook as very few children take packed lunches.

Online isn't a genuine reflection of real life.

Most kids still get a sandwich, crisps, biscuit/cake and a squeezy yoghurt. Maybe a bit of fruit.

A girl I went to school with always had lots of small things including a separate package of blue cheese and crackers. That was in the 90s.

I stopped paying for school dinners the day my 10 year old got served 1 fish finger and 4 chips. I can feed them far more nutritiously than that.

A white bread, jam sandwich with a packet of crisps and potentially a bit of fruit is a really shit lunch. It's great people are doing better!

I do:

Sandwich
Crackers
Biscuits
Fruit compote
Cheese
Yogurt

Diet Coke is hydration.

Peanut butter sarnies and a fruit! Not very parenting blog friendly but quick to pack and DD is happy!

Any recommendations for websites with more realistic ideas for packed lunches?

DS had a cheese sandwich everyday, he won't eat anything else

DD has a much better palate and takes tuna mayo sandwich, peanut & banana sandwich and leftovers in a flask.

Mine has a restricted diet and eats pretty much the same thing in his lunch box each day.

ham sandwich
crisps
yogurt
banana
chocolate mini roll

Haha I loved 90s lunchboxes.
Virtually everyone had a white bread sandwich (cheese, ham or Billy Bear ham), bag of crisps (with a free pog/tazzo/disc thing!) and a club or penguin.

Are they a competition… or are parents just enjoying coming up with fun lunches? Not everything is about appearances some people just enjoy doing these things for themselves or their kids enjoyment. Stop looking at the world so negatively and seeing it as judging you.

Also childhood nutrition is paramount for their future. Not ‘too much pressure’.

And now we know that that lunch is lacking in most vitamins, full of cancer-associated nitrates, excess saturated fat and sugar.

Yayyy another lunchbox bashing thread. I did so enjoy the most recent one before this

No fresh fruit and veg? Compote doesn’t count the same as fresh fruit because blending the fibre out causes the sugars to be considered ‘free sugars’ which spike blood sugar just like added sugar.

My oldest is 15 and long before he was ever born or thought about i used to follow a blog called vegan lunchbox. That was definitely overcomplicating things (and I loved it at the time). So it's nothing new tbh.

Mine have school dinners. But when i did do a lunchbox I would just do a cream cheese and cucumber sandwich; some grapes or berries, some chocolate and maybe a slice of cake. Done and dusted.TBF thought DS1 eats very very simply so I can't be too creative and DS2 doesn't care.

Yep not even sure if Billy Bear even contained any meat 🐻 🤣

Well, this is a bit embarrassing!
On, a humourous note, I would imagine, I was requested to;
"To create a image of a lunch box with an integrated wok."

All very amusing so far. However I am jiggered if I can come up with such a picture. My wheely thing is still spinning away and I dread to think how much electricity has been consumed on this simple request.

Thank God I am in Iceland and at least the heat generated from our colossal computers is freely released into the atomosphere to gently warm the planet.

DS had school lunches all the way through primary but he's in Year 7 now and they only get half an hour for lunch so packed lunch is easier. He has a sandwich, two types of veg and some fruit. On a Friday he gets crisps. It's pretty boring but imo better to have treats at the weekend when he can savour them, rather than during a hectic lunch break.

The point I'm making, is that I would not take a picture of DS's lunchbox on the internet because who wants to see a picture of a chicken sandwich, some radish and cucumber and an apple?

Don't go down that SM wormhole! We know what kids like and eat, simples! Xx

I’ve never comp,I acted my dcs packed lunches.
They were having what we had at lunch.
So a salad (vegs, pasta, chicken etc…)/pasta/curry/chili etc etc… plus a dessert.

But most people would think I was over the top etc….

I think you do you on that front.
if you’re happy to put notes in (not new btw), beautiful bento boxes (my dcs would have come back hungry!) etc…why not?
My own personal limit was how nutritional said lunch was. It had to have protein (decent amount), vegs, some healthy carbs. Dcs never had crisps.

I don’t, but reading some replies on here I’m thinking I could mix it up a bit with some leftovers for DD6 who every day has:

Sandwich (cheese & veg / honey / jam)
Fruit
Yoghurt
Rice cakes / crisps/ cheese biscuits / crackers
Jelly / Soreen bar / choc biscuit / raisins / cake / yoghurt coated fruit (one of these they have at snack time, or their fruit)

Where are you looking to see all these lovely lunches? I’m only on FB so I only see things my friends put up (and I don’t think any of them have ever posted a photo of a lunch box).

My children get a wholemeal sandwich or a wrap, an apple or a satsuma, chopped up carrots, a penguin biscuit, a packet of crisps and something like a homemade biscuit / cheese straw / flapjack (basically whatever is left over from the previous days baking). They eat plenty of fruit and veg (both have two portions of fruit with breakfast, and at least two portions of vegetables with supper) in addition to the fruit&veg in their lunchboxes and for snacks. One of my boys likes veggie couscous and takes that in a food flask as extra if he’s got games in the afternoon instead of prep, but he sorts all of that out.

I think this too. My packed lunch in the 90s was a jam/marmite sandwich, an apple and a penguin bar. Every single day. Not overly healthy but there wasn’t a lot of it really. Now it’s a sandwich, fruit, 2 lots of snacks (like crisps, pepperoni, biscuit, babybel), yoghurt and maybe even something after that. It’s way too much.

DD’s varies on a daily basis, today was a wholemeal roll with honey, sticks of pepper, a box of raisins and a small packet (toddler sized) of crackers (food shop arriving tomorrow!). Day before it was tuna mayo and sweetcorn sandwich, blueberries, and a few breadsticks.

I have to admit I get really stuck for ideas and I find a lot of lunchbox stuff is very perishable so not easy to keep 5 days worth in the fridge.

I don't know what's in my kid's friends' lunchboxes because I am not there, and thankfully my algorithm doesn't show me anyone else's.

Sandwich, cucumber, fruit, something crunchy, something sweet. Does the job.