Chocolate ban

[Kerchoff]

Schools and the education system seem to be masters at creating new problems and their perceived solutions to them.

Recently, the Welsh Government has been pushing 'healthy' lunch boxes for kids.

Seems great, until you realise (a) fat is now accepted as much less of a problem than the nanny state has been claiming for 30+ years (b) there is no actual law covering packed lunches (yet!), contrary to 'suggestions' that there is by the authorities and (c) custard and sugary puddings are on offer every day at the school canteen!

The inevitable response to chocolate bans has been substitution with 'fruit' bars.

Have a look at the side-by-side comparison of a very run-of-mill chocolate finger bar with a very run-of-mill 'fruit' bar. The case seems dead in the water from the outset. But at least the authorities can now start preaching about something else - salt.

I see there is no listing of fibre in your comparison.

chocolate is banned in DDs school, its not because of health in their case, its because of the amount of mess a 5 year old can make with a bar of chocolate, especially in the summer when it melts all over their lunchbox.

Other than that we are just asked to pack fruit/veg/cheese so the packed lunches are balanced rather than just being told to avoid unhealthy food, which seems a much better idea to me.

It's a genture to make a school look like they are try/helping to address the issue of childhood obesity, which in my view is a great problem. You only have to open your eyes and any town centre to see the problem.

I don't know if Wales is the same as England but post Jamie Oliver schools are supposed to offer a properly controlled healthy, balanced, calorie counted school meal. From my experience English schools have made some great strides.

The whole issue surrounding packed lunches is complex, in simple terms parents should be sending in a decent well balanced healthy meal. All parents have their own view on what constitutes a healthy meal and there in lies the problem.

In lots of cases a chocolate bar would be more favourable than some of the "healthy" alternatives! I think the key is education for parents and for better legislation to prevent food companies touting crap as the "healthy option"

Chocolate is banned in myDC's school purely because of the mess.

DS has school lunches but there's a chocolate ban when the kids go on school trips - purely because of the mess that melted chocolate can make. Parents have been know to get round this by sending a nutella sandwich.

However i do see your point that fruit bars aren't much better and that school puddings are often more unhealthy.

I've just noticed that on my DS's menu this week, there is both chocolate brownie and muffins (on seperate days) plus sponge & crumble - both with custard. Whilst fruit is available every day, what kid is going to pick them with these puddings on offer?

Chocolate bars - penguins and the like - are banned in our school, i think because of the mess. It didn't stop DT1's friend taking in chocolate spread sandwiches for the first 2 years.

I agree, OP. I'd much rather my kids had a small amount of chocolate than a processed sugar-filled yoghurt or 'healthy' fruit or oat bar.

And then our school provides (paid-for) 'healthy snacks' in KS2 and they are things like cream crackers, which is just refined high GI carbs. We call them 'not-as-unhealthy-as-they-could-be snacks' at home, but of course my kids still want to eat them because all their friends do, and then they don't eat the fruit that they also get for break time.

That graphic is rubbish. What fruit bar? What chocolate bar?