am i being paranoid or can I say something?

[stroppyknickers]

for a week, dd (yr5) has had to complete a food diary - breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks etc. She has to take this in on tues, and write a cple of sentences about whether or not she feels it is healty and what she cd have done better. We have a strong family history of eating disorders, and I have tried v hard to avoid too much focus on food. I have noticed that she has not eaten much at lunch recently (school dinners). I am really worried that she is at the age where they all might be competitive over weight etc and that this intense focus might do some damage. Can I say something to school or not?

BTW I wd be ok with them all comparing one meal each or something, and I don't object to healthy eating lessons per se.

C'mon - I'm going to look silly otherwise!

Paranoid. Well, you asked

Am sure you know the key here is you having a relaxed attitude towards all food matters.

The focus is on being healthy not thin. So what she should be looking at is saying 'Hmm, those 3 packets of crisps, hmm perhaps I could have eaten an apple instead.'

Your focus, the focus you are going to pass on to her is: 'yes apples are healthier aren't they'.

You don't even have to mention weight imo.

I think the school are likely to have taken advice about whether this would cause trouble with eating disorders. They'll be talking about having a healthy relationship with food, after all.

ok. Will start breathing normally. Felt a bit stressed after all my hard work not to pass on the stressy stuff. Apples good.

Yes. So she needs lots of go foods (carbs) lots of glow foods (fruit and veg) building foods (proteins) etc.

See?

It's not about weight loss, it's about eating lots and lots of great food. This is the line to take!

My ds's have both had to do that.I think it's pretty standard.

I don't think you're being paranoid. I wouldn't be happy about that at all. Why breed anxiety about diet in small children who are can't always choose their own diet? Ridiculous.

Thank you - just worried that all the girls wd be vying to eat less than each other iyswim? Thankyou guys.

MrsMattie - xpost. Thanks, as I don't like the week long writing down everything you eat (it reminds me of annorexia). Glad I am not being overly sensitive.

I would be really bothered by this-I honestly think the "healthy" eating thing has gone a bit OTT.I hate hearing five year olds talking about bad food vs healthy food,and my worry is that labelling food in this way is unhelpful and makes girls feel guilty about what they eat as they get older. I am much more worried about my daughters getting an eating disorder than I am about them getting fat.( We are an active and slim family).

thank you hellymelly - they are back tues, and I just don't want dd thinking twice about an icecream this weekend as she has to write it down...

Ice cream is fine! Tell her this, it's dairy. Nothing wrong with some sugar.

I tend to think it's all a bit OTT. But honestly, two of mine have done this so far, and there was no notion of people not eating as much as they should. It's about the 'I could not have drunk 5 bottles of coca cola, I could have had a glass of orange juice instead.'

Am sure she has a great diet. I think if you think she is vulnerable to this, then talk to her about it, and say 'yes, bread fantastic, you need energy food,' etc?

I see why it reminds you of anorexia, and if you're still concerned perhaps you should have a word with the teacher about it when your dd goes back - just for reassurance. But I'm fairly sure these things will have been taken into consideration by the school - your not alone in having eating issues in your family, and schools are generally pretty aware of it these days.

I teach nutrition to Year 8. We very much focus on a balanced diet rather than an overall number of calories. We don't really get into calories at all unless the pupils ask.

When I start the topic, I usually get them to assess their perfect meal (starter, main, pudding), then we do some teaching, then I get them to assess a better meal. I tend to get them to keep a food diary for homework, but don't do an awful lot with it, apart from a basic review.

Have thought about this further and discussed it with DH and I honestly think if this was my dd I would refuse to take part and keep her off school that day.For a start even without the horrible good food/bad food connotations,it is rather patronising to assume that your child is not learning what a reasonable diet is just by eating one at home.I have a 19 year old god-daughter and so many of her friends have full blown or borderline eating disorders ,it is scary.I would feel much happier with a school putting time into decent cookery lessons.I lived in Camden when my dd was two and as part of Camden's "five a day" thing she went to a cookery lesson for a couple of hours a week for about four weeks and she still remembers it,it was brilliant.We cooked,then we ate and it was just as any focus on food should be.

hellymelly - i am thinking yor way, altho science teacher, thank you for your helpful information. i'm going to ring the school tommorrow. Thanks everyone for rational responses.

I completely agree with hellymelly.

I think it's totally inappropriate to encourage children to obsess about their food intake.

Providing healthy lunches / fruit as snacks, plus laying on good cookery lessons or family cookery courses (our school runs one every term) would be much more inappropriate.

A food diary over a week?
Gawd, haven't our children got anything better to do than to record every tning they've eaten?
Make it up on the last day
that's waht I did when in YR6 DD was given homework that consisted of recording the sunrise and sunset for a whole month
pointless homework serves no useful purpose

purepurple. She is being fairly conscientious about this.

I agree this can be done without any unhealthy focus on not eating

dd did it and found it quite interesting

to her it was science, on a par with studying tadpoles growing or watching the sun rise

I think it is up to the family to make sure that this is how it is taken

of course it's going to be an awful lot harder if you have eating disorders in the family

but it is an opportunity to help her get a positive attitude

if you have a good diet at home then you shouldn't need to feel patronised by it

our take was, look how all these things you eat over the course of a week work together to produce a balanced diet- there is some sense to the way we run this family after all

I think it is good for kids to read food labels so that they can get the skills to put together a balanced meal. You, of course, model good nutrition in what you cook, but it doesn't teach them to make their own choices (or they could be like my SIL and cook exactly the same thing her mother cooked, but who wants to be like that? ).

A balanced meal is just that - it contains a mixture of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, fruit/veg etc. A food pyramid is a good way of showing what the appropriate amounts of each food group are. There is a small space on the food pyramind for 'unhealthy' foods.

Thank you for your input, everyone. I agree with the idea of teaching healthy eating and food groups. What I don't like is dd writing down everything she eats for a week. They already are aware of size, who always has more at tea etc and I am terrified all my hard work will be undone by a careless comment regarding her diary. All it took for me was my aunt mentioning that maybe I should look at whether there were enough calories in the cheese I was eating to draw my attention to my weight. We have bulimia and annorexia and I just don't want that happening in any of the next generations.

Government gone mad again! The local state primary here did something like this when my boy was there. Turned out I was an awful mother because I let him have cake after his evening meals. How awful is that. Cake - the root of all evil. (hmm)

Since he left, they have banned all sorts of food from packed lunch boxes - cheese strings, cheese triangles, any kind of cake, biscuits etc, fruit shoots (?), frubes, cereal bars, yadda yadda yadda...
and apparently, if you try and send in any of the above, you get a note from a dinner lady pointing out your wickedness and unsuitability to be a mother!