Having trouble with school

[Piratedr]

My son aged 10 goes to primary school and he goes with a packed lunch this consists of a sandwich apple a drink and a choclate bar and a bag of crisps.

 

The other day the teacher told him that in future he is not allowed to bring and eat a bag of crisps or a chocolate bar as the school now does not allow them as it is pushing through a new healthy eating scheme.

 

My son came back very upset saying that he was not allowed to take crisps or chocolate anymore,

 

My son is not over weight and is a very healthy young boy who is tall and slim and enjoys a very healthy diet at home.

 

Can the school dictate to me what i can and cannot put in MY sons packed lunch.

 

Please help as i wont some info on this before i go and give this school a piece of my mind.

[gyzmo]

This makes me mad! TSI magazine this week actualy published an article stating that some schools are causing ill health and that kids are not getting enough fat/sugar etc.

 

Why do people not realise that no food in and of itself is good or bad for health - it is the quantities it is consumed along with other factors.

 

I think a bar of chocolate would be very healthy for a kid of his age especially if eaten before he's running around for an hour during lunch.

 

Where on earth do these people think that sugars / energy comes from? Salads?

 

Write a letter stating that you want your son to have a health BALANCED diet and that includes eating sugars / carbs etc, and that if they do not allow it you will be writing to your local education authority as well as the whoever it is responsible for child health as it seems that the school is ensuring he does NOT receive a healthy balanced diet.

 

Bloody little hitlers (yes I know the rule about threads and references...)

[robin9342]

The nutritional content of school dinners is now laid down in legislation. The same applies to packed lunches provided by the school. However, I am not aware of any law which dictates what you can and cannot put in your own childs packed lunch.

 

I had crisps and chocolate in my packed lunch as a teenager and it didn't cause me any problems. Damn nanny state again .

[ErikaPNP]

This annoys the hell outta me. My child came home from school a couple weeks ago having not had a drink all day because she was not permitted to drink the FRUIT JUICE I had put in her water bottle. Apparently the school only allows water to drink.

 

I was fuming that a)The school had not informed me of such a rule, b)My daughter had gone the whole day at school without a drink (she refuses to drink water, unless it has a slight "flavour" to it) and c)How DARE they dictate what I give to my child.

 

Their place is to educate my child, not tell me through my own 5 year old child what I can and cannot give her to drink. I don't suppose it occured to them that fruit juice is actually included as one of the "five a day"?! Daughter's water bottle is impossible to see through or into, and the only way to decipher what is inside it would be to screw off the lid and pour a little out into a container, or drink a little. Are they saying they go through every single child's water bottle ensuring it does not contain a drink they don't approve of?

 

I can appreciate them only serving what they choose to serve from their own canteen or tuck shop but it really is not their place to refuse my daughter a drink of what her mother gives her.

[Lula]

Refusing to allow your child to drink a fruit drink? not allowing a chocolate bar and crisps?

 

I would be complaining in the first instance to te Head and the Board of Governors simultanously, if you get no joy , the local LEA, they are not responsible for your childs nutrition, you are, and a balanced diet contains EVERYTHING. And as for not allowing a child to drink fruit juice, well, I do hope you are going to kick up merry hell, would they have done this if the temperature was 100 degrees outside? again, take it all the way, perhaps even involve the local press, LEA uncle Tom Cobbly and all.

[MrShed]

I am utterly speechless - completely disgusting that this should occur. Wholly agree with Lula on the actions to take.

[poppynurse]

It sounds like your school has implemented a new healthy eating policy - or one of the teachers is acting off her (sic) own initiative.

 

I would ask to see a copy of this policy and determine exactly what it says - if there isn't one, ask the teacher on what grounds she is making these decisions. If there is one it should have been approved by the HT/governors.

 

With so many obese children around it makes sense to me to push healthy eating and to limit the intake of junk food in schools. Teacher can hardly single out the overweight children and if you want your child to have crisps/choc then they can have them at home. I can't see a problem with fruit juice though.

 

Ducking before I get shot

[Lula]

chocolate and fruit juice - junk food?

[poppynurse]

No - chocolate and crisps

 

Nothing wrong with fruit juice as one of the 5 a day although some types are very high in sugar).

[Lula]

a bit of chocolate and crisps in moderation is fine, and you probably know as well as I do that the obesity in kids is caused not just by one factor, ie junk food AND sitting on their backsides watching tv, playing console games, suring the net.

 

I still havn't seen a peice of legislation that allows these little hitlers to impose an eating regime upon children and insist that their parents adhere to it.

[poppynurse]

I hear what your saying Lula - but the Healthy Eating Initiative in schools is about trying to change the habits of kids and promote a healthy lifestyle. It won't solve the obesity problem on it's own but it may help. It has certainly been adopted in my area and is being supported by the majority of parents.

 

At the end of the day if the school brings in a policy, supported by the governors and HT, your only avenue is a formal complaint.

[Lula]

which is what I said in the first place. I would also add that there have been reports written that said that children placed solely on these "healthy Eating Regimes" are being placed at risk because children need fat and carbohydrate and everything else to function and grow. Again it is a case of the supposed decision makers taking it all too far and not trying to strike a balance.

[gyzmo]

There's The Education (Nutritional Standards and Requirements for School Food) (England) Regulations 2007 which seems to dictate what schools may/must(not) provide but this does not apply to packed lunches.

 

However, there is a website here (NON COMMERCIAL!) School Food Trust | Packed lunch FAQs with FAQs on packed lucnhes. Personally I think this organisation should be criminalised.

[gyzmo]

Oh and have schools / teachers forgot that they are there to educate and not to act as dieticians? Sorry, but I am REALLY annoyed at this!

[Lula]

What gets me is that they go so overboard! and then you get the other extreme, all the secondary school kids that come out at lunchtime and go for chips, kebabs pizza etc, now in moderation this is fine but EVERY DAY!!!

[poppynurse]

Tongue firmly in cheek - would this be the generation that missed out on the healthy eating initiatives?

 

 

But as I said I think the OP needs to find out if this is a school policy or one teacher acting on their own.

[Lula]

The person who coined the phrase, HEALTHY EATING ought to be bloody shot, moderation in all things, that is what is should be about!

[alibobsy]

I have had simular issues at my kids schools. My kids have water bottles with very weak squash in them. I repeatedly got requests to swap them for water (some days DD1 would have water instead but others refuse-DS spits water out). I told the teachers my kids would have what I their PARENT gave them. To my mind a tiny bit of no added sugar squash which gets them to drink water is better than them refusing to drink all day.

 

My kids are of healthy weights and eat a wide and varied balanced diet.

I was discussing this with my health visitor who agreed that kids are pushed into all this low fat etc too early. In fact she recommended chips as a good finger food for DD2.

 

Wouldn't mind if they were consistant. At our school they refuse any holidays in school time, but the kids regularly come home after watching videos/tv how is that valuble learning time. DD1 age 5 came home on weds after watching an afternoon of hannah montana!!!!

 

I was outraged when my son said he was told full fat milk would "make him fat". I told him the teacher either didn't understand how real diets work or was given duff info to pass out by the useless government lol.

 

The most annoying thing is the obesity problem is clearly not a diet one. In fact on average we eat lower calories now than in every decade since the 30's, it is exercise or rather lack of it than is the root of all problems. Too many cars and convienences not enough physical activities of any kind for all ages. Interestingly one of the healthiest times was during the war where people ate up to 3000 cals very often full of saturated fats such as dripping, but they did far more physical work and exercise.

 

ali x

[alibobsy]

Btw my DS came home last term "we are learning to bake bread tommorrow" he said, mind you he also pointed out to his teacher he knew how to do it as "mum bakes that".

You might think this would be a good lesson in which to show healthy home cooking, wrong!!!!!

 

Warburtons came in, gave each child a lump of dough and they made bread hedgehogs which were baked for them. They also ran through the range of their products for the kids info...........

 

Bunch of mindless uninformed hypocrits

 

ali x

[Lula]

Totally agree Ali, to both posts

[ErikaPNP]

I wonder what they would do with a diabetic child that needed to have some level of sugar in the case of an episode? I realise that there are school nurses on board, but an older child should really be permitted, and certainly encouraged to manage their condition and therefore carry a sugar substance?

[poppynurse]

To my mind that would be a completely separate issue - ie a medical one and therefoer should be permitted.

[MrShed]

It should be permitted anyway PN - it is completely draconian to prevent home-brought snacks to be eaten, as well as in fact unhealthy - a certain amount of sugar and fat is NEEDED as part of a balanced diet.

[Bookworm]

What amuses me in this thread is the people railing and ranting against "little hitlers" and official bodies all the way to the government, yet happily repeating the "5-a-day" mantra which has no value, no foundation, no nutritional data and is nothing but a government-chosen target, something that will resonate with the masses. And oh boy, hasn't it just?

 

If you want to feed your child crap, please do so, but PLEASE don't try to say it's because it's healthy!!! Yes, balance is everything, but neither chocolate nor crisps are necessary elements in food. Anyone could cut them out of their diet and not suffer any deficiency as a result.

 

Chocolate, thanks to our American friends, has such high raised levels of sugar in it that it is the biggest ingredient in it, not cocoa. Would you give your child sugar lumps to eat? Not that much of a difference!

 

Crisps. Don't get me started on crisps. In other countries, crisps are being served as nibbles with aperitif because it doesn't fill you up before dinner, here, we stuff our kids with it. Is anyone seriously going to tell me that that there is any benefit in feeding those to kids?

 

As for water, I have to say that since we now have so many sugar free squashes, it is still water we are giving them and I have no problems with that. But I am glad not to see primary school kids chugging down their full-sugar Cokes in the playground as I used to. When I started high school, they installed a Coke vending machine in the playground.

 

Yeah, the school's attitude may be extreme, but you know what? If they rely on most parents' responsible attitude, it will never happen. For one of you who "only" allows their child 1 pack of crisps and 1 bar of chocolate a day, there are untold numbers who consider this the staple diet for their kid. If the school policy means that they will have to have somemthing else at least once a day, well good on them. I never saw accusations of "nanny state" when free meals were provided so that the poorer children would have at least one meal a day.

 

And if you still think "they" are in the wrong, and you are not merely inconvenienced by having to think of something else to feed the little cherubs, then at least try not to use the 5-a-day catchphrase.

 

PS: Even with PE, a chocolate bar is a fast-release sugar hit, so not the answer for a long sustained physical effort. Fine if you're going to hit the gym in 15 mns for a short burst on the dumbells, not if you're going to do lengths in the pool for 90 mns. A banana is a much better alternative. ;-)

[MrShed]

If you want to feed your child crap, please do so, but PLEASE don't try to say it's because it's healthy!!! Yes, balance is everything, but neither chocolate nor crisps are necessary elements in food. Anyone could cut them out of their diet and not suffer any deficiency as a result.

 

 

Bookie, I dont quite think thats the point. I think the point is that a small amount of these treats within a balanced diet is NOT HARMFUL, and certainly not tantamount to knives and guns like the schools are almost trying to make out.