Should schools dictate what goes in your child's lunchbox?

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi all,
We've been asked by the Press Association to comment on the Packed Lunch Policy, which advises that lunch boxes should include at least one portion of fruit and one portion of vegetables every day and should avoid crisps, chocolate bars, biscuits and sweets. Maybe you've been told off for putting a treat in your child's lunchbox? Or maybe you're pleased that government's helping you stand up to pester power? Do you think the guidelines necessary/useful? (Thanks in advance)

Here's why they are asking:

By Rosa Silverman, Press Association

(ADVISORY: First ran yesterday under embargo)

Page 1: 02:47

Nearly two thirds of parents believe schools should not dictate what they put in their children's lunch boxes, according to new research released today.

The Government's School Food Trust (SFT) has issued advice on the subject and early last year drew up a Packed Lunch Policy schools could use.

But a survey suggests parents resent such intervention, with 64% saying schools should not tell them what to put in their children's packed lunches.

Just 10% of parents interviewed admitted that their children were not eating the healthy lunch they packed for them, the study by consumer researchers Mintel found.

Emmanuelle Bouvier, senior consumer analyst at Mintel, said: "Mums and dads may feel insulted at the assumption that they don't know what to put into a simple packed lunch.

"Many parents choose packed lunches precisely because it gives them greater control over what their child eats - much more so than with school dinners.

"These new guidelines clearly take this control away and understandably this is putting people's backs up."

But the survey also suggested that parents had been making healthier food choices for their children since the Government published its guidelines.

In 2006, before the latest initiatives were introduced, 66% of mothers said they tried to give their children a mixture of healthy food and treats.

In the latest survey this number rose to 86% of parents.

Nearly three quarters of parents (71%) thought school dinners were healthier than they used to be.

The SFT said its packed lunch guidance was intended to help schools work with parents to ensure as many children as possible received the fuel they needed to stay healthy and alert.

A spokesman said: "Our research has clearly shown that the average packed lunch is not as nutritionally sound as a school dinner which is, of course, now subject to rigorous standards.

"It is up to individual schools to adopt policies of their own but many parents have told us that school meals can take away the worry of putting together a packed lunch because they are nutritionally balanced."

The guidelines include advice that lunch boxes should include at least one portion of fruit and one portion of vegetables every day and should avoid crisps, chocolate bars, biscuits and sweets.

:: A sample of 532 parents or guardians of children aged four to 16 were interviewed.

end

I had meat & potato pie every day for 5 years

I don't go to their staff room and 'ooh chocolate biscuits with your tea, how very unhealthy'

Just another little note.

If my dts are to have chocolate or sweeties during the day then I prefer to give them as part of lunch. They can burn off the energy over the afternoon and it is better for them (according to what I have read) to eat sweet stuff along with their lunch food.

I had cup soups, mars bars, spring onion flavour crisps and fags.

I've not read all of the thread, but absolutely not in my opinion!

It's my responsibility as a parent to ensure that my children eat a balanced diet. But it's also my responsibility to ensure that my children have something to eat at lunchtime that they actually will eat, so that they are not spending the afternoon hungry.

I ensure that they have a balanced breakfast and evening meal, and eat at least 5 portions of fruit or veg, often more. So what if I chuck a chocolate bar or a packet of crisps in their lunchboxes occasionally?

One teacher has a beer-gut, I don't berate him for being a lazy lard-arse

I don't mind guidelines, but my dd's school takes guidelines and makes them the rule of law.

I would be unhappy if I was being dictated to, how would the teacher's/people writing these guidelines feel about me scrutinising their lunches?

I don't think school lunches are particularly nutritious, filling or appetising[at my dd's school]. I do care about nutrition and providing my dc with a healthy balanced diet. I would like my dd to be educated and encouraged to make healthy choices... but not dictated to.

From 14 I lived (whilst on school premises) almost entirely on crisps, hot chocolate and fags. There wasn't enough time to queue for lunch and have a fag, so all the smokers ate vended food, or walked to the chippy which was cheaper and tastier than the school dinners.

when I was at school the staff room stank of vodka and fags

I haven't forgotten so quickly

Guidelines are fine (as long as they're not some bollocks out of someone's over-heated brain, eg no wholemeal bread, has to be granary. Ignored the rest of that note.)

Also bans on the grounds of health and safety I agree with (no glass bottles, no nuts where a child in the school has a bad allergy).

Apart from that they can bugger off.

Schools should have no say about what parents choose to put in lunch-boxes. I would be highly annoyed to find some busybody poking around and complaining!

Packed lunches aren't an option at my DC's school, so we don't have to worry about this for the time being. I think I am rather glad!

This food obsession really, really bugs me. All it will lead to is anorexic children. As if that were the solution to obesity...

I don't think schools should have no say at all - after all, they're the ones who have to deal with hyper-active or hungry children who haven't had a proper lunch if we don't feed them properly. But there must be a sensible balance between ensuring that kids eat a decent lunch which won't turn them into psycho lunatics for the afternoon, and having idiots tell us that our home made jam is not as good as reduced fat shite with loads of additives in it. We've put a man on the moon FGS, surely between us we must be able to work out how to feed our children at school in a way that makes us all happy?

No. My child has a fantastic diet and what she has at lunch isn't always a reflection of that - though usually it is. However, if she gets a lunch that isn't that great it'll be because I've run out of stuff and I'd rather she ate crap than nothing and I'll be down the shops later to make sure whatever she lacked at lunchtime is made up for when she comes home.

One lunch woman told her last year that she shouldn't have cheese sandwiches every day - why the hell not? Perhaps that was the only time she ate dairy. I was bloody annoyed.

So how dies this tie in with people complaining that schools are not more pro-active about nits? Surely it's a parent's right to treat or not treat nits as they wish? And how about PE? Surely it should be up to the parent whether a child takes exercise at school or not? Uniform? Oh, and if I want to bring my child into school at 10.30 then that's my right too - how dare the school dictate to me what time I wake my child up in the morning.

Sheesh - I can't believe that people are defending their right to feed their children crisps! Children are in school for 6 hour 15 minutes - they aren't going to starve without a chocolate biscuit!

Haven't read whole thread but feel mrsmaidamess has a very good point. It is however one I feel probably won't be true and goes to the crux of why I support schools promoting healthy eating.

A child who brings white bread sandwiches to school is unlikely to be eating wholemeal toast and porridge for breakfast simply because the 2 meal choices indicate different types of parental choice/involvement.

i think its fairly safe to assume that white bread is empty calories and jam more so whereas granary/wholemeal is a healthy choice and more or less any filling better than jam.

I am fairly control freaky so happy to have schools control what's in lunch boxes as I try particularly hard to give my kids a healthy lunch only sometimes to face hard questions/have it scuppered by the few who insist on sending rubbish.

for e.g I send my kids with flasks ( even 5 yr old ) with say brown pasta and cheese inside and little pot of sweetcorn and cucumber. Another fave is quorn sausages and couscous. the older dcs love soup in the flasks.

Sandwich fillings are cream cheese, tuna or egg.

Always send one type of veg and one of fruit and a snack. Snack is cereal bar or non choccie biccies.

I actually do think one high calorie snakc is important and would have no problems with mums sending choccie based snack or biccies or cake etc. Many cakes and biccies are home made and very healthy - besides kids need a sugar boost too - however sending jam on white bread will just cause sugar crash and is purely unhealthy.

I know a lot of the health conscious mums in the class suffer a lot with the few who persist in sending chocolate speread or jam on white bread ( and I mean every day not an occasional break from other fillings) as their kids then complain. One mum who sends mackerel as a filling or sardines gets it particularly hard.

MI - yes.....the story v the spin! My rantathon was definitely about the q in the thread title!

I am gazing at a bottle of Mayonnaise which is doing it's best to get itself approved as a health aid with a banner which says 'good source of omega 3'across it.

DS calls those Taste the Difference biscuits in a box 'dangerous biscuits' because of the red wedges in the traffic light label. As in 'can i have a dangerous biscuit, Mummy?'

I feel besieged and obsessed-over with guidelines.

But accept that the more we eat things that have been made, the less we know what is on our food.

As a parent I completely agree that I would like to decide what goes into my child's lunchbox. From a teacher's perspective though, it can be difficult to teach a child that is flagging in the afternoon from having a bad lunch. Also teachers don't want to tell parents what to do. This comes from the government and, unfortunately, just like many other things, schools have to follow instructions. Teachers would rather concentrate on teaching, which is what they are trained to do and enjoy doing.

Also, I agree that the current KS1 fruit and veg snack is not enough to keep children going until lunchtime!

Ooh, I was just going to say exactly what dottoressa said! It is a great idea to teach children to eat a good balanced diet and get plenty of excercise but we are begining to focus on the little things in such detail that we are verging on obsession.

My 4yo came back from school in her first week and told me that milk has lots of fat in it and fat is bad for you. Now I think it is important that children know that fat is NOT bad - in fact you will die without it. TOO MUCH fat is not a good thing yes. I put a lot of effort into giving my children as balanced a view as I can. My eldest is 13 and I have suspected that she has thrown up after breakfast in the past (no proof of course) but the last thing a food worrying 13yo needs is their 4yo sister telling them that "that has fat in, fat is bad"

We are in serious danger of going too far the other way and may well end up wth our next tranch of kids being just as food obsessed as the last lot, only this time, instead of burgers and more more more we are going to have kids who live on celery and less less less. Neither is healthy IMO.

Ooh, I was just going to say exactly what dottoressa said! It is a great idea to teach children to eat a good balanced diet and get plenty of excercise but we are begining to focus on the little things in such detail that we are verging on obsession.

My 4yo came back from school in her first week and told me that milk has lots of fat in it and fat is bad for you. Now I think it is important that children know that fat is NOT bad - in fact you will die without it. TOO MUCH fat is not a good thing yes. I put a lot of effort into giving my children as balanced a view as I can. My eldest is 13 and I have suspected that she has thrown up after breakfast in the past (no proof of course) but the last thing a food worrying 13yo needs is their 4yo sister telling them that "that has fat in, fat is bad"

We are in serious danger of going too far the other way and may well end up wth our next tranch of kids being just as food obsessed as the last lot, only this time, instead of burgers and more more more we are going to have kids who live on celery and less less less. Neither is healthy IMO.

But white bread isn't 'empty calories'. It is teeming with calcium, protein, even some vitamins.

I agree that it isn't as healthy as white, and may signal wider choices and habit, but it isn't empty calories.

Alocohol or haribo are empty calories.

oops sorry!

Jam isn't "purely unhealthy" either. If home made, it's 70% preserved fruit.

Children don't need as much fibre in their diet as adults either, so white bread is not such a big deal.

This whole thing of demonising certain foods - white bread, jam, biscuits - is part of the problem in the dysfunctional relationship we have with food. Of course if you sent your kids to school with a lunch box full of white bread jam sarnies and biscuits, that's crap - but a biscuit or jam sandwich with a tuna pasta salad, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes and a banana? Fine.

Blu - has been a long time since I studied nutrition in any great depth but I recall that white flour has all goodness stripped out of it /bleached out of it and then synthetic vitamins added back in . These are nowhere near comparable to wholemeal flour/granary bread vitamins which occur naturally.

White bread is also higher in sugar and is consequently consumed by the body far quicker than wholemeal/granary. IMVHO it is empty calories.

I think it's quite dangerous to assume it does signal wider choices actually.

Both my kids have white bread sandwiches, because they don't like wholemeal (neither do I, I like multi-grain and pumpernickel/ rye bread). But at home, they have soda bread, brown rice and properly cooked food and mostly their white bread is home made, so no preservatives. I bet it's healthier than Hovis shite.

RiaParkinson that is my point, the school DS will be going to in September has a no u healthy food policy and DS has been given the exception with a note from his specialist which is great except if all the kids are sitting in the lunch hall eating thier healthy packed lunch grumbling about no choccy bar then they see DS with his chocolate or cake then he is going to stand out as being 'different' and the kids may resent him for being alowed the 'forbidden foods'.
This will also be a problem when he is older as he will continuously be explaining and justifying his lunch which is just not fair.

So we are going to have to find 'healthy' options like cheese/youghurt/milk all with full fat milk or pay for school dinners so he can load up on the pud!

If parentwere allowed to choose the contents of thier childs lunchbox or the rules were relaxed to 1 unhealthy/treat item it would make my life alot easier, although i know a school can't and wont change it's policy for one child!

Ds eats all his bread/biscuits/homemade cake for the day at school. He eats all his fruit and veg and dairy at home. It's just the way he is.

Fortunately his school are sensible and don't have a go. Ds once got told to eat some more sandwich and told the teacher it had dropped on the floor and the matter was dropped straight away.