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brooke

packed lunch

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dont think many of you will agree with me on this :( but here goes!

My son takes a packed lunch to school he has sandwiches (ham) a youghurt, 1 packet of crisps, cucumber, a banana and 1 mini roll. Now i dont think there is anything wrong with this but the school says his mini roll is sweets and shouldnt be allowed it. I disagree. :dance:

I do not belive it is up to the school or goverment to tell me how to feed my children. I dont think there is anything wrong with what he has and he needs something to keep his energy going. I dont feed him sweets everyday or chips or takeaways. He is a fussy eater and i know whats he has if he is on packed lunch. He would not eat the school dinner (so he would be very hungry) and someone would have to sit and feed him so im actually saving them the hassle of that. It just gets on my nerves when people decide what is good or bad for your own kids. What is wrong with him having ONE tiny mini roll. (Like they dont have a treat its hypocritical) Also he is a thin child certainly not over weight and has a balenced meal for his tea. I am not one of these mothers who purposely feeds my children rubbish to eat i think they eat quite well considering when you go to the supermarket all the stuff on offer is unhealthy i never get a discount on my fruit and veg :blink: but i still buy it. Anyway rant over you can all disagree now :lol:

Brooke

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Well there's a pair of us lined up to get shot! Cos I agree with you 100%. I saw this on the news the other day & I was so :angry: There was a mum on who made her kids a meat n salad sandwich, with a piece of fruit and one of those small animal bars of chocolate. Like she said, 99% of the lunch was healthy, this was a treat for her kids. Plus they had a proper breakfast and a meat and two veg kind of tea so she was furious when the school banned the choccy.

 

This is another example of nanny state I reckon. By all means let the govt come up with ideas if they feel they need to, but at the end of the day we KNOW what's healthy for our kids, we don't need to be told! BUT, one rule suits all does not work. We know some of our lot can be faddy eaters to say the least - as long as they eat that's what counts!

 

Had to larf tho. They had this chef on the news with these wonderful ideas about healthy wraps involving cous cous and salad and salmon for packed lunches. This mother looked at him incredulously and said "TBH I am lucky if I can get up, get my kids dressed, get their PE kit / school books / etc sorted, get then out in time for the bus and leave the house with my knickers on the right way round, without thinking I can faff about with cous cous" :lol::lol: I liked her

Edited by Jill

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:blink: I think the school knows better than to try and change what my son has for lunch.

 

Jaffa pod, skips, cheese spread sandwich cut into 4 small even squares with the crusts off and fresh orange juice, been the same since he started on lunches. Not the healthiest, doesn't always eat it all but he's having something, after the 2 YEARS eating NOTHING on school meals, which they failed to mention until a review meeting that he occasionally had a slice of bread and that is all, I think I will decide what he has.

Edited by lil_me

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Totally agree - this issue makes me so mad.

 

When my daughter was in the last years of primary - all she ate for a particular while were a few slices of cheddar cheese - and all she drunk was sparkling mineral water. The school had a policy of no sweets/chocolate and no fizzy drinks (not that the choc/sweets were an issue at the time because she didn't eat them).

 

It caused great grief and anxieties every day that my daughter went in with her water as she worried non-stop that she'd have a row because it was fizzy. To which I would have gone ballistic - it wasn't as if she was drinking full-fat 10spn of sugar cans of coke!!! My daughter was so severely underweight at the time if I could have been blessed with her eating extra calories by munching on a bar of chocolate on top of just 3 thin slices of cheese all day then that's what she would have had as her weight was absolutely critical - and as for the water - I can't recall the number of times she was admitted when she was younger for dehydration because she would hardly ever drink anything.

 

I can understand healthy food and all that jazz - but frankly after what my daughter was like eating I'd have done anything at the time for her to be 2 stone overweight rather than see a nearly 12yr old weigh less than 4 stone.......

 

You are not going to stop overweight/unhealthy kids just by controlling their lunchboxes - and neither are you going to suddenly make kids who struggle to eat certain textures and flavours eat things that make them retch.

 

Take care,

Jb

Edited by jb1964

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Aargh, I'd be so mad if I were you! Those people are either shortsighted or bored with their dull lives! Say milk gave your son indigestion and the school knew, because he'd said in a conversation or something, but that he continued to drink milk because he had a serious calcium deficiency and constantly had to be drinking it because nothing else offered it as fast as he needed it? The school might end up killing him! LOL!

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We are experiencing exactly the same Brooke at our eldest dd's primary. Our dd (9 AS) used to be very, very thin and over the last couple of years has put weight on and now is a healthy weight and still slim. Not so long ago she came home and said she wasn't taking her penguin bar to school anymore in her packed lunch because it was unhealthy. The dinner ladies were giving out stickers to all those they considered were eating a healthy lunch, and had passed comment on our dd's penguin bar. I couldn't make her change her mind and was furious. Not long afterwards I bought some hippo bars, situated in the biscuit section of our supermarket, and the dinner ladies again passed comment and told our dd she must not bring them anymore as they were sweets. I complained...loudly, and received an apology. Our dd is now due to go on a school trip next week and has come home saying that the teacher has said she wants everyone to have a healthy packed lunch and she will be checking them.......who the heck do these peeps think they are! Our dd has now said she won't be taking her crisps on her school trip, as she is worried. I wouldn't mind if she had a very unhealthy packed lunch, but she takes fruit juice, a yoghurt, a chicken sandwich with no butter, a packet of crisps and some raisins......

 

It parents evening next week, and I will be raising this issue. I wouldn't dream of going home with any of the staff and commenting on their meals and I don't like being dictated to.

 

Seems quite hypocritical to me that when the Xmas and Summer Fayres are due they send out letters requesting cakes etc for the stalls, and also when they hold school discos they SELL sweets and all sorts of rubbish.......why not sell bananas and smoothies instead , if they are so intent on promoting healthy eating.....ooooohhhhh, I'm sorry.......turned into a bit of a rant...... :whistle:

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REECES SCHOOL HAVE BEEN REALLY GOOD HE TAKES A ROLL WITH TOMATO SAUCE IN A PK OF CRISPS AND A CHOC BAR DOSNT ALWAYS EAT IT BUT AS MOST OF U SAY EATS SOMETHING BETTER THAN NOTHING. WOULD THEY RATHER OUR CHILDREN STARVE!! SOME PEOPLE MAKE U SO MAD :angry::angry:

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Hi all -

I'm gonna play devil's advocate here - not because i think any of you are in the wrong but just because i think there is another side to this coin other than the 'special circumstances' outlined by most of the posts above...

Chocolate in schools? Why? Ben has a few sweets most days, as a treat or as a reward for something he's done. Nowt wrong with that, but surely there's nowt wrong with making that an 'out of school' treat either, is there?

We live in a society that is becoming increasingly obese, and whether our own children are part of that social trend or not, it does make sense to have some 'general' guidelines in places where such guidelines can be made to work, I think, because outside of school those guidelines are completely 'voluntary'. That some of our kids may be subject to some 'exceptional circumstances' is probably true, but if there's a blanket policy about sweets it would seem totally unfair to me to play that card for one child in front of maybe 300 peers who it doesn't apply to. We'd be the first to complain if such 'discrimination' was made against our kids, wouldn't we?

I know it's a toughie, and it DOES seem unfair if the individual concerned is a responsible kid with responsible parents, but you have to offset that against the type of people we saw in the newspapers the other day who were takling orders for Burgers through the school gates in protest against Healthy school dinners!

I don't know whether it's a 'nanny state' or not, but I do think our kids deserve better than that and i do think there is such a thing as social responsibilty as well as personal responsibility... I don't know how you marry those two things together, but I do know that the people taking orders for Burgers and chips would be putting forward exactly the same arguments as those who have posted above, and that the prognosis for many children eating those lunches is an early grave. It's a statistic that gets quoted a lot at the moment, but the fact is this generation of UK kids is the first in history to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, and that to my mind is a point at which 'positive intervention' becomes reasonable...

 

L&P, he says, ducking the rotten tomatoes :lol::lol::lol:;)

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Chocolate contains iron. That makes it good for you.

 

Tell them it's a carrot disguised as a mini roll.

 

Actually, tell them to get their noses out of your child's lunchbox otherwise you'll pass him junk food through the fence.

 

Well, that's what I think anyway.

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Chocolate contains iron. That makes it good for you.

 

Tell them it's a carrot disguised as a mini roll.

 

So does a carrot! Give him one of those and tell him it's a mini-roll in disguise :devil::devil:

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Hi

 

They'd have a point if you were feeding him lots of sweets full of E numbers which send kids loopy! Sounds like you're giving your child a well-balanced lunch with one little treat - one which is entitled!!! I agree with comments like 'something is better than nothing'. I know that some ASD kids/adults can be extremely fussy about what they eat and that's when that statement is warranted. Ignore school!

 

Best wishes

 

Caroline.

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the thing that makes me chuckle is that flapjacks are perfectly acceptable in lunchboxes but i'd pity the poor fool that gave one to c cos the only thing food wise that sends him hyperactive is oats :lol::lol:

 

i thought it might be a gluten thing as my mum's got coeliac disease but he's fine on wheat products which have a higher level :huh:

 

but then he's got my genetics so he's bound to be a little "quirky" :whistle::lol:

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Oooohhhhhhh rotton tomato coming straight at ya Baddad :lol::lol::lol: Seriously though, think you've raised some valid points. I wonder though how well the schools practice what they preach and how they reconcile selling sweeties and cakes etc to raise funds. For dh and I the main concern was that our dd was very thin and has managed to put some weight on but since the comments made to her she has been leaving things out of her packed lunch, as have her friends.....think its a fine line between promoting healthy eating and making children overly aware to the point where they may become focused on eating nothing they are told is "unhealthy" for them, and it has made me wonder how long it will be before the little girls start to focus on their weight etc. I also feel its a worry for children like our dd who take what is said literally, and who then worry and fret about getting into trouble for having something like a packet of crisps in their packed lunch. Think Caroline summed it up well, everything in moderation, which is what we have always emphaised to our children. I feel the school should offer advice if requested, give healthy food choices, but don't dictate what a child should or should not eat unless the parents are fully consulted and the child's background and eating habits and/or any issues they may have with food are taken into account. Walking around a dinner hall, making judgements on what is contained within a packed lunch, without any knowledge of that child or consultation with the parents, is in my opinion, wrong. To date, we have never received any letter regarding what we should or should not be putting in our childrens packed lunches.....infact our school seem to be focusing on promoting/sending letters home regarding trying school dinners again after the majority of parents withdrew their children and put them onto packed lunches because the school dinners were atrocious. They need to work in partnership with parents.

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Well, I've got to say I'm with Bid 'n' Badders as well.

 

I think it's important to remember that while WE might be capable of providing healthy food for our children, and ensure that we do to the best of our ability, there are an awful lot of parents out there who don't or can't. But a blanket policy in schools to limit the kind of foods that some kids eat all the time is a positive move as far as I can see. Although most of us here on the forum have the sense and awareness to feed our children well, some parents just don't have that knowledge and need to be educated as much as their chidren do. School is for education, and I think that's the right place to start. If not, aside from the inevitable early grave for so many, there's the cost to the state of looking after them before they pop off. All these things have to be considered in the grand scheme.

 

Then again, when J first started school he wouldn't take any form of protein in his lunch box. I trained him to eat chocolate peanuts and he took those every day for the first three years. Would schools describe those as sweets? Possibly, but as some have said, it's better than nothing. So there are valid points on both sides of the argument. (Incidentally, on the one occasion he stayed for school lunch he ate nothing but a large sugar doughnut covered in a dazzling array of hundreds-and-thousands - very impressive).

 

As an aside, J's a bit upset this week because apparently the dinner nannies go around the packed lunch hall telling all the kids to 'eat their sandwiches first'. I can see the logic here from their point of view - eat your substantial lunch before you have your sweet treat - but J's baffled because he doesn't have a sandwich, he doesn't do combination foods and has a piece of bread with some chopped up chicken or turkey in a separate container. I get the impression that he's getting nervous at lunch time in case he gets caught and told off for eating the wrong way. One more for the list when I meet the SENCo...

 

Karen

x

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well i havnt changed his packed lunch the only reason a letter was sent out was because the school had ofsted round and they mentioned "sweets" etc are unhealthy. If they call me in i will go up against them on this it would be the first thing i have.

 

I understand what bd and karenT said but i still dont think its up to the school to tell us how to feed our kids. Supermarkets should be price cutting healthy food instead of crisps etc. And as for the women feeding food through the fence fair enough it aint a good idea but you cant just change a childs diet and expect them to just start eating vegtables etc. Also the mums said that some of the kids werent even getting dinner cos the qeues were so long over 1000 pupils to feed in 30min i dont think so.

 

Also i wouldnt expect my son to be able to eat what he wants while the other kids have to eat healthy my whole point is its up to parents how to feed their children there is enough education out there to know what is good, bad and a treat etc.

 

Im surprised so many of you agreed actually :lol:

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Dont want a school teacher telling me what to give my child. MY DD can be picky. Some days its not so healthy other days its pretty good. Unfortunately sometimes doesnt like it when she has something the other kids dont have. eg she loves sushi. So she asked me to make it for her - I did- teachers raved about it kids laughed - now she wont eat it in school but has it at home! I wouldnt mind but the kids that laughed were eating "lunchables" She loves home made dips with raw veg. Will she eat it in school- no way after the other kids laughed. Again the ones with the "lunchables" - She keeps nagging me for these stupid things. Peer pressure will not win but It is annoying after all these years of getting her to eat a varied diet. And shes 5 - god help the teenage years!

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I had this argument with the school last year. So far they've banned crisps, biscuits, cake and chocolate at break, but not at lunchtime. So the break snack has to pass the nutrition police. I pack a sandwich (wholemeal with protein filling), fruit, a yoghurt and a snack size of chocolate. If my kids want to eat their chocolate ration at break then as far as I'm concerned they can. But on the days I've run out of fruit, they aren't allowed half a sandwich, they don't want to take spoons out in the playground so no yoghurt (unless I'm forced to buy drinking yoghurts) so in the event that nothing passes the nutrition police's check, they do without. Some of the things the school class as "healthy" I think are total c*ap, but in the absence of fruit I have put something in as a reserve.

 

What really bugs me is that when I asked the school (very very nicely!) to stay out of it because their "rules" made my kids diet worse, I was given an out of date leaflet promoting the virtues of aspartame and low fat/diet stuff. I even had to argue to get water bottles in the classroom, when my son was going into meltdown after school from dehydration. I even offered to join the nutrition police to give some parental feedback, but was turned down. I might have logged a written request that my children be allowed to pick something from their lunchbox at break, but its ignored, and to be honest my kids wouldn't want to be "different" by being allowed stuff others aren't. Some kids just stuff banned things in their mouths when no-one is looking. Eating disorders in the making?

 

The break rules aren't followed by the staff either - the kids can see that, and parents know it. In our school its some box ticking exercise by the governing body. I reckon it will spread to whats eaten at lunchtime as well. My son used to be food phobic, if he still was then if the rules get worse, he would have starved.

 

Our school are not interested in holding an open meeting with parents to give advice and up to date information on healthy lunchboxes, or to get parental feedback, or just get an idea of some of the problems, they just dictate by newsletter and rules in the school.

 

If I wasn't so busy fighting the LEA about banning the school from speaking to us because we complained about holiday in term time (which led to our daughter being sent home with a head injury and us not being told) I'd take it up.

 

Just haven't got the fight in me at the moment :crying:

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Sorry...don't want to start a massive row, but I'm genuinely interested about this chocolate thing.

 

Some of you are saying you give your kids something chocolatey as a 'treat' in their lunch boxes.

 

Does this mean that after lunch at home (weekends/holidays) your kids have chocolate too??

 

I'm just interested, because my kids have the same lunch at home or at school (no chocolate).

 

We tend to have sweets/chocolate as a treat on a Sat and a Sun, but very rarely during the week.

 

We never have chocolate as part of a meal...I can't see the value of it as part of a meal??

 

Please don't all jump on me...I'm genuinely interested to understand your thinking about chocolate as part of a meal, because I don't understand?? :ph34r::ph34r:

 

Bid

Edited by bid

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If I had to take a packed lunch somewhere for myself, it would contain a bar of something

that was covered in chocolate. :devil:

 

I think there should be some sort of rule that only 'one' chocolate thing or something similar

are allowed in lunchboxes.

 

Bid, we dont have chocolate as part of a meal, but if my kids eat their meal then yes they can

have chocolate, it should be the same for lunchboxes.

 

I think we are getting to the point over here that in the end our kids wont be our kids!!

 

I'm lucky in the fact my son has school dinners which he loves :blink::blink::blink:

but I know if he took a lunchbox he would want something sweet as well as savoury,

and before someone suggests fruit, it would be left to fester!!! :rolleyes:

 

Brook

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Bid

 

We don't do sweets at all, the kids get a bit at Xmas and birthdays, but thats about it. But in terms of sugar and glycaemic index, chocolate can be a better option than some of the so called "healthy" snack bars passed by the school's nutrition police. If its just chocolate, and not say a biscuity chocolate bar, it can also have considerably less additives and no refined wheat. It doesn't contain the same damaged fats that crisps have. It contains magnesium, some protein etc. I think of it as a food, sometimes we eat it, sometimes we don't. Used moderately, it boosts feelgood hormone and neurotransmitter production (which is why we sometimes crave it). I also use raw chocolate powder therapeutically in smoothies :D because raw it also contains the enzymes that cooked chocolate doesn't. Its a part of my enzyme therapy :lol:

 

Two of my fave books are "Why women need chocolate" and "Naked Chocolate."

 

I've found that if I crave chocolate and eat a bit, the craving goes away. If I treat it as sinful or a treat only on special occasions, then I crave it more and finish up eating a lot more :oops:

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I have seen some dreadful things that children are given as lunch. One little girl was given half a packet of digestive biscuits because that was all Mummy had in the house. I have seen mouldy bread, a box of crusts etc etc.

These things have always happened and will always happen. Sadly many people do not have the where with all to provide a healthy lunch and I dont know what the answer is.

To be honest I dont consider a mini roll a big deal.

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my 5 year old son has autism, he only eats 10 different foods and i find it really hard to pack a lunch box. All he has is a packet of crisps which have to be chicken or smokey bacon and a kitkat, the kitkat always comes back home uneaten.If the school bans this sort of food in lunch boxes i will not have anything else to put in it and would have to send him to school with just a drink.

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I was given an out of date leaflet promoting the virtues of aspartame

 

:huh: If I sent The Boy to school with anything containing aspartame & he drank it, then I think they would quickly change their mind about dictating what we could put in his lunchbox, cos he'd be climbing the walls :lol:

 

Bid - TBH The Boy really doesn't like sweet stuff. He'd much sooner a banana or yoghurt. What annoys me about all of this tho is that anyone with half a brain KNOWS what is healthy to eat. Any caring parent tries to make sure their child eats well within the boundaries of what that child will eat.

 

The minority of parents that ARE sending rubbish in the lunch boxes are (generally) in the "don't care" brigade - the post about crusts / mouldy bread / biscuits demonstrates this. These people will not change just because of leaflets or new rules from school, but those of us that DO try suffer as a result.

 

That's my gripe anyway :D

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What really riles about this issue is that for years many parents have been complaining about the quality of food provided for school lunches and sending their children off with a decent alternative. When J started school four years ago it was all chips and smiley faces (every day), turkey dinosaurs and utter junk, so the only way to ensure your child was getting something worth eating was to make it yourself. As I said earlier, J's one and only experience of school lunch was a fluorescent doughnut.

 

Then along comes St Jamie and persuades the government that the food they serve IS cr*p, then it becomes a big (and vote-grabbing) issue. So now the schools are telling us what the majority of us have known all along - how to feed our kids properly - except they come across all holier-than-thou as though it was their idea in the first place.

 

THAT's the bit I resent.

 

Karen

x

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Sorry, I still don't get it :(:unsure:

 

Why put chocolate (and crisps come to that) in packed lunches at all?? :wacko::wacko:

 

I just don't understand how things which to me are 'treats' have become everyday things??

 

Bid (who is feeling increasingly as though she has become her mother...soon she will start saying 'During the war we didn't have bananas/chocolate/crisps, etc, etc...'!! :o:lol::shame: )

Edited by bid

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well i spoke to school this morning and they said he can keep his cake bar :groupwave: its just chocolate bars they dont allow? They were nice about it too :oops: Thing is though how the hell are you supposed to know what THEY think is good for your kids. I should just be gratful hes allowed it. My friends school says no crisps biscuits or choc at all and take them away from the children and only water.

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My sons school up here north of the border at least gives puddings with meals today for instance on the menu there is a chcoclate crispie with cornflour sauce. My son won't eat their puddings in fact all he does eat if at school dinners is 2 cream crackers or rich tea biscuits, a very small orange juice and/or milk and raisins if he's lucky. Why then should I not provide him with a pudding in the form of jaffa cake pack thing or happy hippo? He mainly has packed lunch with the main item being breadsticks or a slice of dry bread because he has very limited food choice and will starve rather then gag and vomit with new foods. Until school provides him with foods he will eat even if it was bowl of cereal or porridge he will have what I give him which are the very limited choice of what he will eat and what is possible to put in a cold lunch box.

 

Schools need to tackle really bad lunches by providing those specific parents with education, support and advice not have blanket bans IMHO.

If they don't want to fund this and from their own point of view will not bend their lunches to provide for children who need alternate choices for whatever reason they should keep their oars out because they aren't helping provide healthy diets themselves at least not in my sons case.

 

Lorraine

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I hate the whole 'one size fits all' (no pun intended :D ) approach of these kinds of policies. I fully understand the school rule about not bringing in food containing nuts. What I resent is the way the government are allowed to dictate what I do/don't feed my children.

 

As it happens I'm one of the lucky ones with a child at school who loves fruit and doesn't like cake and sweets. His 3yr-old brother is completely different and has a very limited diet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he will be eating a little more by the time he starts school next year. :pray:

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my 5 year old son has autism, he only eats 10 different foods and i find it really hard to pack a lunch box. All he has is a packet of crisps which have to be chicken or smokey bacon and a kitkat, the kitkat always comes back home uneaten.If the school bans this sort of food in lunch boxes i will not have anything else to put in it and would have to send him to school with just a drink.

 

Hi Venus! Playing devil's advocate again :devil::devil: - if the kit kat always comes home uneaten then it won't matter if it is banned :lol::lol:

 

 

KarenT - holier than though attitude since the demise of turkey twizzlers! :clap::clap::thumbs: Totally agree, a complete hypocrisy... Having said that, though, I STILL think that, whatever the politics behind the changes, the general message is the right one, and the need for collective responsibility is a bigger issue than the individual responses were seeing in the papers etc.

This may not be a particularly palatable observation, but we tend to get really upset when schools don't deliver for our kids education wise... Isn't it a bit unreasonable to then say 'No I won't take chocolate bars out of my kids packed lunch' when they're seeking suport for a Nationwide attempt to raise health and nutrition standards?

 

One other thing about the 'treats' aspect of this... does that then mean that those kids eating choccie bars etc at school get no treats whatsoever at home?? That's downright mean! I'd rather reward Ben for good behaviour with a treat at home than have him get one by default at school everyday... and if they DO get 'treats' at home too - well that begs the question how many, how often etc, and taking those into consideration is the 'school treat' the absolute necessity some people seem to think it is?

 

Now, with that I'm off to hide! :devil::devil::o:lol::lol::lol:

 

L&P

 

BD (AKA spawn of Beelzebub!) ;)

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I think it's really hard actually. A small chocolate-covered mini roll in the context of an otherwise healthy diet isn't going to do any harm but I can see where schools are coming from. My SIL works in a primary school and on many occasions she has seen lunchboxes containing nothing more than a bar of chocolate and a bag of crisps :o I can see why they are putting more emphasis on healthy eating and asking that chocolate isn't included in packed lunches. Schools seem to work on crowd-management principles and I think some parents have to have these rules spelt out in black or white for them to listen. Sadly for the rest of us with a modicum of common sense it seems like the nanny state.

 

I think Bid's point too about why include chocolate in a packed lunch is valid. I rarely give mine chocolate after meals so wouldn't really cross my mind to include it in a lunch box. On the other hand schools do serve puddings with school dinners (ours serves chocolate sponge pudding once every three weeks as a 'treat') so don't see why kids on packed lunches should be devoid of anything sweet. To this end I packed a gingerbread man this morning with DSs lunch!

 

Lx

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My son often comes back with some of his lunch still in his box because "it's unhealthy" or deemed so by some nosey dinner lady. They have a no chocolate bars, cans or sweets rule which is fine.

 

If I put a jaffa cake in (just one) or give him a special treat like a jammy dodger on a Friday it usually comes back because he's too afraid to eat it in case he gets in trouble (he is only 5).

 

It makes me furious because he is such a fussy eater, it took me a good year to get him to even eat bread for his sandwiches for school (and still now he will only have jam, lemon curd etc).

 

Today he had 4 sandwich quarters (apricot jam), carton of apple juice, a squeezy yoghurt, a cereal bar and a pear. That would be his normal Monday - Thursday sandwich box - is that so bad? On a Friday he has chocolate sandwiches and a small treat like one biscuit. Obviously because he is HFA breaking this Friday routine would be a nightmare (he HAS to have chocolate sandwiches on a Friday!) - love him!

 

He's not overweight, he is active and healthy ... what the chuff has it got to do with them what I feed my child. I would love him to eat pitta bread, houmous and celery sticks, but it's not gonna happen because of the way he is!

 

Anyway, I am glad it is not just me.

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dont think many of you will agree with me on this :( but here goes!

My son takes a packed lunch to school he has sandwiches (ham) a youghurt, 1 packet of crisps, cucumber, a banana and 1 mini roll. Now i dont think there is anything wrong with this but the school says his mini roll is sweets and shouldnt be allowed it. I disagree. :dance:

I do not belive it is up to the school or goverment to tell me how to feed my children. I dont think there is anything wrong with what he has and he needs something to keep his energy going. I dont feed him sweets everyday or chips or takeaways. He is a fussy eater and i know whats he has if he is on packed lunch. He would not eat the school dinner (so he would be very hungry) and someone would have to sit and feed him so im actually saving them the hassle of that. It just gets on my nerves when people decide what is good or bad for your own kids. What is wrong with him having ONE tiny mini roll. (Like they dont have a treat its hypocritical) Also he is a thin child certainly not over weight and has a balenced meal for his tea. I am not one of these mothers who purposely feeds my children rubbish to eat i think they eat quite well considering when you go to the supermarket all the stuff on offer is unhealthy i never get a discount on my fruit and veg :blink: but i still buy it. Anyway rant over you can all disagree now :lol:

Brooke

 

Hear! Hear! I agree with you wholeheartedly. God help me if the school tells us cheese strings are junk food because Martin will hit the roof!

 

My child is not overweight and loves his packed lunches....and yes we have mini-rolls too. ###### nanny state! :angry:

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What the Hell IS wrong with chocolate every day???? I wont let them have glowing orange fizzy stuff and teeth rotting drinks but I'm blowed if I'll ever consider a small amount of chocolate evil!! My son is seriously underweight and i've told them at his meetings that he'll have a lunchbag full of high fat, high sugar stuff cos he needs the calories. Yep the protein and fruit and stuff is in there too but NO_ONE dares tell me off these days...I think I scared them!!!

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I think being so strict with what is good and bad is unhelpful in the long term.I grew up with few treats.A mars bar once a week was about the extent of treats in our house.I left home at 18 having had little say in what I could and could not eat.Ever since I have struggled to have a good relationship with food.I have tended to eat those foods that were limited when I was young when I am stressed,bored etc.Consequently I am now working to shed several stone to reach a healthy weight.

I agree that children need a healthy diet.However I think that views that particular foods are good or bad is very simplistic and unhelpful.What is important is that children have an all round balanced diet and that they learn to have a healthy attitude towards food.Karen

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You know what worries me.......where will all this end? Parents seem to be having decisions taken out of their hands more and more.

 

On a slightly different take on things.....will the government soon announce that all children MUST be fully vacinnated to attend school for the good of the majority and the school then enforce this?

 

I've had all my three vacinnnated, but would not expect all parents to be forced to have their children vacinnated if they felt it was not safe/appropriate/had doubts etc....its a personal choice, which is best made by the parent, seems no different to me than a parent being best placed to decide what food their children should be eating.

 

The freedom of choice seems to be getting less and less......... :( I also find it appalling that the parents don't seem to be consulted AT ALL....they appear to be taking it up with the children themselves...which is scary for them.

 

My son's secondary school stopped the kids going into town for lunches beginning in Sept to encourage healthy eating...I had no probs with this. Our son sometimes takes packed lunches, sometimes decides to have school dinners. When he has a packed lunch he has a chicken sandwich, crisps, 2 peices of fruit, fresh juice, raisins, sometimes a penguin bar or he will take a container with a tuna pasta salad in. When he stays for school dinners he has either burger and chips or pizza and chips.......followed by a very stodgy sponge pudding and custard/sauce, yes they can choose a salad but he rarely does as he thinks the school salads are horrible.

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I've been reading this thread with avid interest as getting my son to have a healthy packed lunch is something I battle with daily. I hope the lunchbox police never visit my son's school as half the contents would be outlawed. :lol: I do admit to giving him crisps and a biscuit or cereal bar - he doesn't like sandwiches so how else would I get carbohydrate down him? I give him fruit (which he doesn't eat) and a yoghurt (which he does).

 

I think the problem is lunchtime supervision - there is no one making sure that the children sit and eat for a reasonable time before rushing out to play. My son tends to eat the treats first and then off he goes.To be honest, the amount he eats at school is so minuscule I don't worry too much about it. He eats loads of fruit at home and for dessert I make lollies from fruit juice. Sometimes he has biscuits and cakes and icecream. His diet is repetitive but balanced and while I can still count his ribs I'm not going to worry about him being overweight!. I'm against sweet things being used as rewards - this just increases their appeal. They should be a normal part of the diet, in my opinion.

 

I don't think schools should be directing what parents put in lunchboxes. The government now interferes in the upbringing of children at every level. I ageree there should be guidelines on healthy eating but the campaign needs to start much earlier, long before children go to school and habits are formed. I don't think banning chocolate from lunchboxes is going to do much to raise the health standards of the nation in the long term.

Edited by Kathryn

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