School lunch rant - Would you complain?

gingin_2

Well done you, I am seriously full of admiration.

My mother had her own serious issues with food and would use it to control us. By the age of 12 I was throwing up after every meal ( I can remember my first time was at school, after school lunch) and it continued well into my twenties. It's so difficult for girls (and boys) these days, with pressure coming from everywhere and I feel that schools and their lunchbox police are just adding to it.

At first I didn't want to repond to your post because I thought is was just naivety on behalf of the teaching assistant who hadn't been exposed to delicious things like hm guacamole and hummous but I think I would be slightly more miffed on hearing that the "fat" word has been banded about to more than one child ( it now sounds to me like ignorance rather than naivety). In my opinion, I think schools should be focussing on encouraging children to be far more active rather than the food side of things. As your experience has proved, schools have little or no extra knowledge of nutrition than a caring parent.

It sounds like you are doing exactly the right thing with your daughter by supporting her and giving her a positive message about food. I have a 6 year old daughter and family history means that the next ten years worry me but I have to try and remain as "normal" about it as possible, just like you are with your daughter.

p.s my daughter has one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000OW4DO8/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000OW2HV4&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=00KCR4N9Q5AN6ZPVYFE2

It means I can give her decent, varied, homecooked warm meals at school.

Eric_Pisch

trust Gordo to turn a great idea, nutritional education for children, into yet another police state enforced control ...

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle

Well done by the way - sounds like you handled the situ well! I'd also ask them if they have any plan to add other veggie meals in as the one option all week if pretty unhealthy and unbalanced and certainly should not be promoted

Your daughter has made a choice to be veggetarian and thats nothing she can be critisised on, as long as she is getting her protien substitutes she will most likely thrive and do very very well. Good on her. I'm not veggie, but we do try to keep meat to a small portion in this house, money reasons as well as health ones

Through my entire pregnancy with DD i was veggie (through being unable to keep any down initially, not choice) but it was the most healthiest and alertest i have ever felt in my life (weird considering you usually feel tired and sluggish while preg), hence our choice to keep our meat consumption low now. Well done to you OP for supporting your daughters choice.

dizziblonde

The Frubes thing... yep year6 haven't half discovered you can make a cracking yoghurt gun out of them with a bit of practice (I suppose it's physics in action or something)

I'm a teacher and I'm blooming sick of the celery gestapodom we're meant to do as well. Sick of chocolate being the root of all evil, and I'm not going to sit and bang the Govt's drum about fruit being the only flipping food group around and scare all the kids witless! I try to get across the balance bit of it, but when you've got idiot initiatives on high insisting we must have a themed week of "healthy eating" lessons... there are only so many ways you can twist a bit of celery to fit Maths, English etc etc!

I hate that what we're moving toward is an increasing indoctrination of younger and younger children, down into nursery and pre-school now... I'm a teacher, not a brainwasher.

HeatherH

Just wanted to make a note about the clear plate/box policy they've got going on... I swear I have read somewhere that forcing a child to eat everything they have leads to eating problems in the long run, if you're persistantly told to eat everything even if you're no longer hungry, wouldn't that encourage the children to be "fat" as the TA put it.
Sometimes I wonder if the staff as some schools need an extra training course in common sense.

Glad the meeting was positive this morning too

pigpen

Eric_Pisch wrote: »

trust Gordo to turn a great idea, nutritional education for children, into yet another police state enforced control ...

and since when did school staff not have freewill?

These are guidelines not written in stone and if school staff are too stupid to see the damage that is being done then there is a huge problem within the school not with the government!!

I have seen children sent to primary school (up to yr2) with nothing in their lunchbox but a full double packet of bourbon biscuits.. and another with 12 chocolate bars.. fudge, twix, marsbar etc.. It is these children the guidelines are out to pinpoint and give the staff some leeway to say to these parents.. this is not acceptable.. this is what would be good choices..

I do think there should be a way for staff to highlight parents who repeatedly send in crap and have he parents educated.. the children eat what they are given.. they do not understand nutrition or the appropriateness of some foods over others so it isn't the children who should be being 'educated' .. scared into not eating anything!.. it should be the parents who buy the junk.

My 3stone 7 year old was refusing to eat anything but vegetables.. until i found out why.. I then sent her into school armed with loads of info on the benefits of meat and eggs and fat and cheese and all the things the school had said were not acceptable. Information is very useful when you have it all.

There is no way my children would have eaten what was in the OP's childs lunchbox.

What is interesting is.. if you get a packed lunch through the school.. if they are off on a trip and get free meals.. they get... a cheese sandwich, a yohgurt, an apple, a packet of crisps and a carton of juice.. always useful to know what the local authority provide as a 'healthy lunch'

I did ask if our school could have a list of foods which were good ideas for lunch boxes.. this went down well with parents.. new ideas for them to try.. many are just set in their ways and give their children the same as they had.. after all, it never did them any harm

elvis86

Mely wrote: »

Hi Gemma... the school should have been providing adequate school meals for vegetarians in the first place and, at present they are not. No child should be expected to eat macaroni cheese everyday for their school dinner!

I have to say I disagree with you there. Its pretty unrealistic to expect a school to have a varied vegetarian menu every day of the week. Perhaps on 1 or 2 days they could make clear that all the food on offer will be vegetarian so that vegetarian children can have a schol dinner that day if they wish? After all, non-vegetarian kids can stomach a meal without meat occasionally too!

At the end of the day vegetarianism is a choice, one can't expect it to be indulged to that degree, IMO. What the school should do is allow vegetarian children to bring a healthy packd lunch without fear of having it taken off them!:cool:

yummymummy1987_2

How ironic i should come across this post! Have just half a hr ago had a phone call from my sons school!
Aparently his ryvita and philli has gone soggy so he may come home a very hungry boy? I laughed and said ok thats fine, just let him leave it.
In his box today he has cucumber sticks,melon and apple pieces. 2x custard creams about 5 tortilla crisps and a cathedral cheddar portion (then obviously the ryvita and cheese spread) Everything he loves i really couldnt believe this entitled a phone call home when i could well have seen he didnt eat it if it was left in his box and i doubt very much he would starve :eek:

Just had to laugh seems crazy but maybe thats just me????

mumps

I used to worry about getting a snotty letter from the school as my daughter had marmite sandwiches for lunch for about ten years. They must have thought I was very bad at new ideas! It was either that or jam, she wouldn't eat anything else, and I thought the jam would look even worse. No one ever actually mentioned it. When she went on residential trips from school she always took a jar of marmite, she said she was very popular at breakfast time when she supplied half the kids.

my_gorgeous_ellie-belle

Lol, bless her - personally jam is fine too in my eyes. Sod what anyone else thinks - i ate it loads when i was a kid! My OH's mum makes her own from the fruit she grows in the garden and it's gorgoeus!