So is it normal that chldren are not allowed to eat jam sandwhiches for lunch?

[LynetteScavo]

For DS's luch today I packed;

Tuna Sandwhich

Carrot sticks & homous,

Yougurt

A very small jam sandwhich with the crusts cut off.

I've never put in a jam sandwhich before, but have put in the odd digestive biscuit or mince pie.

DS tells me he wasn't allowed to eat the jam sandwhich, as they are banned, but they are allowed kitkats, he tells me. (no chance mate! )

So is this normal - are jam sanwhiches the work of the devil, even if they are organic bread with jam made by Granny?

Dd1 has jam almost every day as thats all she will eat in a sandwich.

my kids sometimes have jam sandwiches when I run out of ham, cheese etc and when they are bored with Marmite. Everything in moderation IMO

Seeker, of course it's entirely reasonable for schools to have a healthy lunchbox policy.

The problem is, that many school staff appear to have no idea what a healthy balanced diet for a child is. Low fat, sugar free, calorie-poor meals, are not healthy for children. But many schools appear to think that that is what consititutes a healthy lunch-box. And therein lies the conflict.

At our school we recently did an audit of packed lunches to see what children were eating at lunchtimes. The most popular sandwiches are ham,cheese, jam,nutella and tuna in that order (almost always on white bread). There is little variation and often some children will always have jam or chocolate spread. This is inevitably accompanied by a bag of crisps, a biscuit/chocolate bar/cake and a fruit shoot/capri sun drink.
Fruit/veg is seen only in 1/3 of all lunchboxes. It is now policy that if a child continually brings in an unhealthy packed lunch the staff will speak to the parent. Since the introduction of nutrient based schooldinners in our borough the nutrtitional discrepancy between school meals and the lunchboxes is now much wider We introduced the schoollunch policy to try to ensure those on packed lunches had a meal of the same nutritional quality as the school meals

I'm guessing that it is easier to say no jam sandwiches so that all children are having something nutritious rather than the more complex message of only a balanced lunch please. However I am surprised that Kitkats are allowed. Our school had a no chocolate rule, again nice and straightforward. But we didn't seem to have any policing - at least no comments came home.

I do think people should be aware that these campaigns are encouraged by government only because of the issues around obesity. If on average children were not getting so fat, then no one would be very interested in what was in the lunch box. There are educational benefits to eating a sustaining meal though, as concentration is much higher (studies on breakfasts have shown this, which is why there are so many breakfast clubs).

I could see why no jam sandwiches, if it hadn't been for the kitkat bit.
Jam is generally very high in sugar so if they have a low-sugar "policy" then jam wouldn't fit into it - but kitkats are obviously not low-sugar either, so either your DS was making that bit up or they are bonkers.

Or, just possibly, they have a child there who has a severe strawberry allergy - but it's not going to be as bad as peanuts, and I'm pretty certain there has never been a case of strawberry jam causing a reaction in someone who is sitting near someone else eating it...

I think it is not a bad thing for the schools to have some kind of influence of the nutritional quality of the lunchboxes, if it is properly informed.

A friend of mine is a teacher, and at her school, if any of the students/pupils has something high sugar in their lunch, it is "confiscated" until the end of the day, when it is given back to them. Their reasoning is that they don't see why they should deal with the "sugar high" at school.

The "Sugar high" concept has no validity (there is no such thing, overloading on sugar does not biologically result in hyperactivity). However if you eat a meal that only has high sugar or easily digested food (like white bread) you will run out of energy very fast, and subsequently feel quite low relatively soon after, which is why it is recommended to eat a balanced meal with more complex carbs (although children in general need more easily digestible food too).

yup, no validity to anyone who hasn't seen it in children responding to high sugar levels.
I am fully aware that science does not validate it, however empirical observation is frequently no longer taken into account in science, sadly.

All children get more lively after eating, because they have more energy, and because that's when they get a break from sitting still in their classrooms. There is no biological plausibility for the idea that lots of sugar goes to your head as it were, in fact sugar is generally calming rather than energising (for example if you are feeling dizzy or faint or have had a nasty shock, sugar can be very helpful). There have also been a few studies showing that environment is more important than sugar in exciting children. Finally I always wonder why it is that adults think that lots of sugar makes their kids go hyper, but has no effect on them (the adults that is). My children can very easily get over excited, sugar has nothing to do with it.

Ds proudly says "I have a HAM sandwich - it's honey AND Jam" and then he points out that actual Ham has MSG and food colouring in (well it does in NZ okay) and that he is allergic to peanut butter and that he didn't feel like cheese today and at that point the teacher on lunch patrol knows the allergy kid knows his stuff and buggars off.

Well, empirical observation shows that if you tell a parent their children have had sugar they will report the children responding to high sugar levels, yes. However, empirical observation also shows that that happens whether or not the children have actually had sugar.

Indeed. We stayed once with my sister, and her dh has a thing about sugar and children, and made a big fuss because I had brought some unsuitable breakfast cereal. They then went out and bought some sort of Chereos, which I noticed was full of sugar, but hey ho. Anyway after a week of hearing all about sugar highs, my children started whizzing about and saying they were having sugar highs too. Their diet was no different from normal. The power of suggestion...

I think it is important that things are put into a child's lunchbox that they will actually eat.

There doesn't seem much point putting lots of things in that comply with 'policies' if the child won't eat it. I've tried it. I end up with an upset child who the school staff have told 'your mother wouldn't put it in there if you didn't like it' and then made sit the whole of lunch until they ate it or they ran out of time and it got left. I would put things in that I knew they liked but then they would tell me they didn't feel like it, they weren't hungry, they didn't have time to eat it and other reasons. So better to stick to something that was reasonably okay, that could be bolted down and I knew they would eat.

Fruit etc available at home that they could eat at their leisure.

Oh and I've not experienced the sugar high with any of my children so I find it difficult to believe.

good grief, the lunch box police strikes again. I gave DD packed lunches at primary school cos she is a fussy eater and I would rather her have something than go hungry, so school dinners were never an option. And she had jam sandwiches a lot cos that was all she would eat, apart from dry white bread. She is now in high school, year 7 and has a cheese panini evry day at school. Healthy eating is important of course but blanket bans are a bad idea if they take away choice.

juuule that sounds terrible. I remember dinner ladies like that from when I went to school, and dinners were absolutely disgusting. I have memories of sitting through the entire lunch break over some horrible plate of food, also one time when someone put a sausage in the bin for the pigs and everyone had to stay in the hall until the culprit admitted to it. I thought such dragons were long gone

My children aren't school age yet, but have heard my friend's school complain about baked bean sandwiches, grouping them in the 'unhealthy' category. Sure, that's a bit unusual, but I thought baked beans could count as a portion of veg?

Agree with LittleBella's point about staff being ignorant rwt what a healthy lunchbox consists of, and what muppetgirl said about the message such enforcing gives out - a school's superiority over the parents (even if it may be the case)?

What should happen surely is that the school works to educate both the parents and the children, without explicitly saying the parents are wrong (i.e. teaching about healthy eating in the classroom, keeping an eye on lunchboxes and targeting 'ill-informed' parents with phonecalls, leaflets etc).

so glad for you that you haven't seen or experienced sugar highs.
I have both seen and experienced sugar highs and lows. Perhaps I have poor glucose control, I have a tendency to hypoglycaemia.

Yes the power of suggestion is strong. I agree. The placebo effect is based upon it. However, I really cannot be doing with "I've never experienced it therefore it can't be real."

when i was at school i often used to feel full before i had eaten everything but the dinner lady told me i had to eat everything, i started getting a letter put in the box saying that i may not eat everything, at a parents day later parents tlking to woman they thought was another parent, "have you heard about ms x who makes them eat all their lunch, stupid woman?!" it was the dinnerlady

at one nursery i know there is a sign on the door listing whats healthy whats not, saying avoid the latter, the children kept coming home with choc, sweets etc, then children asked to take in crisps and cake for party!

at DDs school, when i filled in form i said no allergies or special diet but like to encourage healthy eating. they ask for packed lunches to be healthy, no choc or fizzy drinks, in 3 weeks they were unhealthy food on 3 occasions, were learning about cereals so tasted cornflakes (already have sugar) with a bowl of sugar to help themselves from, learning about milk so made choc milkshake, had gingerbread men etc and their school meals have chips, choc sponge, custard etc

you can get jam thats just sweetened with fruit juice, most marmite is pretty salty, is that banned, what about salty ham?

A friend of mine suffers from sugar lows, it usually makes her lethargic and faint. Having something sweet brings her back to normal again. Having extra sweet things doesn't make her hyperactive though.

At least a dozen high-quality studies have investigated the possibility of a link between children's behaviour and sugar intake, but none has found any difference between children who consumed a lot and those who did not

the worst example I've had of schools' idiotic approach to healthy eating is having dd, on being served home-made bolognese, tell me "red meat is bad for you". I was furious. she's perfectly capable of understanding slightly more complex and more accurate things like "if you eat red meat every day it will make you unhealthy". unlike the teachers it would seem.

OP - what's wrong with giving them a Kit Kat??

I agree it's madness and also if they say he can't eat his jam sandwich they're encouraging waste as it's not something that will keep (unlike a kitkat)- not very green of them INHO