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 will also add (sorry im boring you all now) i agree with whoever said that parents need to be educated, take that woman from Jamie's MOF she was feeding her kids takeaway shit everyday and didn't really know the difference.

Everyone i know, knows that if you put a selection of healthy foods in a lunch box along with one maybe 2 of unhealthy 'treats' its not going to harm your child.

no!!! they should sod off...... I am fed up with my ds's school dictating every breath that my son takes on the premises - unless of course he is naughty in which case it is all my fault not theirs.....

No, i find it incredibly hard to find 'suitable' different foods to put in my ds lunch box as he is very food phobic . He doesn't eat unhealthly and is in fact underweight. he has most of his food groups everyday, but refuses to try new foods or even have his ffod touching each other, he will get hooked on foods and eat them everyday for say 6 weeks, then he won't even consider eating them again for the next few weeks. It is very difficult and if a school was to insist on certain foods, he probably wouldn't eat much at all.(not that he does anyway!)

I will alos stop giving him the occassional unhealthy treat in his lunch box when the school stops giving the children, pizza, chips and home-made bread all in the same meal. Great for carbs but where are all the other food groups? Atleast my DS eats most of them when i feed him!

and, does anyone else go through the stage when we are dictated to about what goes in their packed lunch box to within an inch of my life and yet they are often sent home with crap e-number lollies from the TAs or classmates which they are not allowed to eat at school - like I want them to eat them at home 30 mins before tea........ or at all....

I see the school meals menu has "chipped potatoes" rather than chips.

Makes all the difference

The problem is they come out with such bollocks it gets people all defensive. Some schools only allow a non jam/choc spread/marmite sandwich and fruit which does rather limit you. You can't have home made wholemeal seeded bread with homemade hazelnut choc spread but you can have processed bread and billy bear 'meat'. My ds (4) was told that popcorn should be for a treat at home, not for school. It wasn't butterkist shite, it was popped by my own fair hand and had no salt, sugar or butter on it. Crisps are not banned and some children have them everyday so why was I made to feel bad for giving him popcorn? Some of the guidelines from the schools are so ludicrous (ie reduced fat cheese instead of normal, low fat yoghurts, no yoghurt coated raisins, no marmite) that lots of people (me) dismiss the whole lot.

My ds has either porridge (with raisins apricots and sunflower seeds) or shredded wheat with raisins for breakfast with a banana smoothie. He rarely has a sandwich at lunch but if he does it is either white bread or bread that is about 1/4 wholemeal flour to 3/4 white, which looks like white bread. I generally put sunflower and pumpkin seeds in. I don't need him being told that he is unhealthy because he isn't eating hovis. He already thinks that chocolate cake kills you, milk and cheese make you fat and that crisps are good but popcorn is bad.

i don't think its good policy to have people in power dictate anything actually.

what would happen if your child took in a chocolate biscuit or a jam butty?

i have asked this question, and parents on this site have said that their children would become targets by the school food police

they do not want their children to be bullied becuase of the parents packed lunch choice

thats what happens

is this really education?

is this really what school is for?

no it bloody well is not. Teach my children to read, write and do arithmatic.

stop bloody pandering to taboid pressure brought about by jamie fippin' oliver mutated to the Nth degree.

If as a parent i am not providing my chidren with adequate sustainance, then the government should but some FUCKING resources into teaching me how to be a better PARENT

and
stop
force feeding
policy
through
the education
system

If My chidren are not being adequate 'citizens' then instead of teaching that twaddle to them n senior school, teach me how to parent better
Teach me that its not ok for my children to be drinking on the street at 10pm
change public perception
change society through educating the adults
not bullying the children

and pay the FUCKING teachers a days wage to have inset days int he holidays.
inset days are extra days out of my chids education
and i wish the education system
would educate my chidren instead of being the means in which to mass indoctrinate our chidren with whatever the daiy mirror finds so fucking revoding this thursday

Fantastic post Custardo.....

Our DC's school dictates what to put in the dc's lunch boxes...it drives me mad! Especially as I found that they were taking away minutes of playtime because of a kitkat!!!....we are now having meetings with the school regarding this.

That's why you shouldn't have 'rules' about lunchboxes.
Because rules can be enforced in the most ill advised ways

Lisa - I am no great defender of white bread, but I think it's important not to get too OTT about it - and although it isn't as good as wholemeal, technically it is not empty calories. To avoid hysteria about normal healthy eating, I think it's important not to get too damning of less healthy alternatives.

Apparantly bread made from Spelt flour has 17 times the minerals and vitamins than wheat wholemeal - but that doesn't suddenly make ordinary brown bad, or empty.

good heavens - they have tried this rubbish at dc's school but have thankfully surrendered as so many of us went in and complained

My dc are dairy free and thus have more than enough limits set on their diet - hence why they have to take packed lunches. The school meals menu does not contain a single complete meal that my children could eat in the entire four-week menu. So we are 'forced' into a packed lunch corner.
As my children need a reasonable quota of fats, calcium, and so on to make up for their lack of dairy foods, they get them in other ways. I balance their diet on a daily basis and obviously throughout the week. Now this is no easy task, believe me. Anyone who challenges the choices I make as a parent has to be either brave or very stupid. We were challenged at one point as ds1 has a sugar 'hit' in his morning snack box alongside a longer lasting item such as a muesli bar - this is because his digestive system is so poor at absorbing that the dietitian advised it... oh that poor teacher, needless to say we have never had to explain it a second time.

I don't mind them advising. If they want to say "We suggest your child's packed lunch should contain [whatever] and [whatever] should only be included on a very occasional basis." then fine.

I do object if this advice is then treated as having some quasi-legal significance and pupils are "not allowed" to have lunches that are not in accordance with the guidelines.

Blu - given re spelt bread but white bread has nothing left after goodness stripped out - that's why they have to put vitamins back in. So its not a comparison between something great and something greater but something great and something pretty poor again IMVHO. Woudl not really argue too much about it . As you said, more important things to argue about...!

But it has protein! More (I THINK...but prepared to be found wrong) than wholemeal! Real protein fom the gluten / wheat. Ditto calcium. I know the vitamins are put back, but still....if you were starving on a desert island you'd be better off with white sliced than haribo or alcohol.

I mean, I know you probably don't eat Haribo because of the gelatin, but you know what I mean! I don't eat it either because it is horrible.

Nah, you'd be better off with rum and Captain Jack Sparrow...

you make a goo dpoint, custy

you have to go to New Zealand to get good white bread

Yes.

See (though have not read thread in full) I am one of only few supporters of idea and must add disclaimer that we are school lunch parents.

Because we support the idea that healthy food needs to be provided at school as a major health intervention.

It is akin to uniform. Sure, it doesn't allow autonomy nor allow kids to express their individuality but it is a good thing to give kids less choice in the interests of general, public wellbeing.

Of course we all feel we know best for our own kids. But of course on aggregate, we clearly don't.

KingCanute - a v sensible post.

My DS came home from school telling me that biscuits were bad for you - he knew because his teacher said so. Whatever the subtleties of the 'healthy eating' message, all children hear is the memorable bit - namely 'biscuits are bad'. I was cross about this.

What our children need is a normal, balanced relationship with food, not an obsessive one. Obsessive healthy eating is in its own way just as unhealthy as a diet of junk. What's happened to the 'a bit of everything (from cucumber to chocolate) does you good' attitude to food?

charleen you must be in a HUGE minority

I am going a bit besside the point there but, are anyone else's Dcs moaning more about having to eat fruit and veg since they are told in school that they are the only good food to eat? My Dcs were very good fruit and veg eater and now find it almost as tedious as homework! they made healthy food a chore !

Custardo - slightly off the point, but don't teachers deserve a holiday from work? You obviously don't have any teacher friends as if you did you would know that most teachers spent the majority of the holidays working at home anyway. When else would all the paperwork needed to teach your children get done? Also teachers have children too - they are real people!

most real people dont go off work for 12 weeks a year and then have a training day on the day they go back