How to stop the lunchbox police!

Frogletina

busiscoming2 wrote: »

In the school I work in, we don't ever remove food from children's lunchboxes, but we inform the class teacher and ask them to chat to the parent if we feel the luchbox contents are an ongoing problem. Some children are repeatedly sent in with chocolate sandwiches, chocolate bars (yes more than one) and crisps, or the dreadful (IMO) Dairylea dunkers which constitutes their sandwich part of the lunch. One six year old came in with a Terry's Chocolate Orange to eat after his Jam sandwich!!

Our school dinners are much improved since JO's interference. Each child is given a menu for the following week to take home and complete. There is always the option of fresh fruit and salads each day, so it is up to the parent to decide.

Probably more where that came from after the glitch found via MSE

mummyroysof3

my kids are fussy eaters but i do my best with their pack lunches..would hope that a teacher would have a word with me about it if what i send is a problem rather than take it away from them

onlyroz

mammyof7 wrote: »

Among the things that were not allowed were cheese strings (she said they were not proper cheese), yoghurt tubes and processed meats !!!.

Wow. How do you define "processed meat"? Because most sliced meat designed for sandwiches is processed in some way - and I have no problems making up a sandwich for my kids with it (and it's certainly the cheapest way of making a ham sandwich). As for yoghurt tubes - how are they any different from yoghurt in a pot, which is meant to be one of the more healthy things you can give your child?

I remember when I was at school they introduced a healthy eating scheme. You were given a card which would get stamped if you chose a healthy meal in the canteen. Once you'd got enough stamps you could exchange them for (e.g.) a free swim at the school pool.

Nicki

onlyroz wrote: »

Wow. How do you define "processed meat"? Because most sliced meat designed for sandwiches is processed in some way - and I have no problems making up a sandwich for my kids with it (and it's certainly the cheapest way of making a ham sandwich). As for yoghurt tubes - how are they any different from yoghurt in a pot, which is meant to be one of the more healthy things you can give your child?

.

Some "meats" though are basically the bits of the animal you wouldn't normally eat, or mechanically retrieved scraps, bits of skin, etc processed with chemicals and reformed into a slice of meat. You would know these meat if you see them.

Yoghurts in tubes tend don't they to be the highly sweetened varieties with lots of artificial ingredients. You are also sucking them through a tube rather than eating with a spoon which causes much greater tooth decay.

Just as there is a huge difference in nutritional value between a slice of supermarket cooked ham, and a slice of "chicken roll", there is also a huge difference between a tube of yoghurt and a small tub of yogurt made with fresh fruit, modest sugar and no artificial colours or preservatives.

Sublime_2

My sons a fussy eater, so he has more or less the same every day. He doesn't eat much, and is at preschool. His lunchbox consists of:

4 Cream crackers, or something similar
a mini babybel, or sometimes a slice of ham/chicken/beef cut into strips
a yoghurt/fromage frais. I vary so he doesn't get bored, very occasionally is a chocolate mousse for a treat.
A piece of fruit, usually apple, pear, or grapes, although sometimes change
A packet of quavers low in fat, do vary sometimes though with ricecakes etc.
A carton of juice. Do vary from fruit juice, ribena, to the occasional fruit shoot.

Its in between, an ideal solution to tempt a fussy child into eating. Has treats, yet is not bad as such.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

what has been touched on here, is that not every school is set a consistant policy regarding lunchbox's, some children has allergy's and have to be carefulll what they eat like anything that contains NUTS or have been in contact with NUTS, a mum/dad will send a lunchbox containing what the parent knows hasnt been in contact with that product, if dinnerstaff took that away because SHE/HE THOUGHT it wasnt a right healthy meal and gave a school dinner instead and that contained nuts or trace of nuts and child went into anopholactic shock the school would be left open for one hell of a CLAIM.


i agree there needs to be a consistancy of policy regarding removal of foods from lunchbox's and dont forget these food stuffs were paid for and is not the property of the school upon removal, even though its their policy to remove them they have to be handed back to the parent at end of school not thrown away. there needs to be considderation given when attempting to remove certain items, not everyone remembers a childs medical dietry requirments when overseeing the whole school in one dinnerhall, and not every school passes on personal medical conditions to its dinner staff. more care needs to be taken in this vigalante whip around of childrens lunchbox's and a replacement meal given.

its not right for anyone to give a 4 year old a row because of whats in thier lunchbox at all END OF, had it been my child i would have had the dinner lady and the head of school in thier office finding out how the hell she/he could justify such a row to a young child in early leaning stages.

milliemonster

I think the one of the issues I have is that schools appear to feel they have the authority (and audacity) to 'teach' me and 'educate' me on what to feed my child at lunchtime, they are there to teach and educate my child, I am a qualified nurse who has undergone extensive training and as a senior cardiac nurse I am well aware of the guidelines for healthy eating to prevent cardiac disease later in life, more so than any teacher will be and I find it wholly offensive they attempt to force their healthy eating strategies on families in this way.

I have no doubt there are many schools and communities within the UK where children are fed the most appalling diets and this needs tackling, but I do think many schools are overstepping the mark somewhat.

My son goes to a small rural village school and despite the constant letters we seem to get on a weekly basis discuss their healthy eating initiatives amongst others (which generally go in the bin), they don't seem to police our children's lunchboxes to the same extent as some of the posters on here are reporting thankfully. If they did, I would be the first to point out that they need to lead by example (the head is morbidly obese herself)

My son is like a whippet but I am not deluded enough to think that that means I can feed him constant junk and it won't affect his health just because he is not overweight, the majority of my patients are not obese but have significant heart disease caused by many factors. My son would eat crap all day every day if I allowed him to, but I try my best to balance his lunch with foods that are healthy and nutritious, along with foods I know he enjoys and will eat and provide him with the right balance of energy and healthy fats to see him through each day. The school in return only provides 20 minutes of PE once a week, hands out packets of Haribo sweets when it is a child's birthday or special occasion (which seems to be every week) without MY consent (he comes out of school at hometime eating them) and then has the audacity to try to educate me on healthy living.

Schools are there to educate our children and possibly extend that education and advice to families where it is clear there are significant issues to be addressed, confiscating food, labelling food as good or bad, and cooking up bizarre policies regarding removing sweets from birthday cake etc etc are just going to ensure our kids grow up wanting these things even more. I do believe that the majority of parents are well aware of healthy eating guidelines and they should be allowed the choice of how they feed and bring up their children without such interference, I am pretty sure there would be a public outrage if we went around every patient's locker at work and started confiscating all their chocolates, sweets etc, all we can do is advise, not dictate

GobbledyGook

If your child's school is causing problems with your child's lunch then the first two things to do are to ask for a copy of their lunch policy and then for the training that the people removing lunch items from children have received.

If you then discover that an untrained TA has removed your child's 'unhealthy item' (hummus and home made guacamole labelled by her as a 'dairylea dunkable type thing') then you can issue the school a letter accepting their ban on fizzy drinks and hot soups on the groups of safety, but stating very clearly that ANY issue with your child's lunch have to be raised with you and only you as your child has no say in the lunch they receive.

My biggest complaint in the whole saga was the perception taken by my daughter that her lunch was 'bad' and that she was going to get fat. I don't want my young children worrying excessively about getting fat - I want to teach them that a little of everything is good. That it is ok to have a cake or sweets or whatever, just in moderation. We have no banned foods in our house - we just have foods that we eat more than others.

Thankfully since the saga of my daughter's lunch (which someone incorrectly recently said resulted in a sacking - it didn't, the TA quit rather than apologise for telling my child she'd get fat) her school has got much better with packed lunches.

The huge push against packed lunches is (IMO) a ploy to have more pupils go school dinners. Especially those who'd be entitled to free dinners, but choose lunches. The more pupils who get free dinners the more money schools get. HT's, in my experience, find packed lunches a hassle and would dearly love to not have to deal with them.

Welshwoofs

meritaten wrote: »

So, I opened my big mouth and said something should be done - and I wondered if any of you had any thoughts on how to go about this?
I was wondering whether it may be possible to get Jamie Oliver involved.........after all it was down to HIM that the schools dropped the infamous Turkey Twizler! I will do some research and try to contact him.............BUT I believe that a many pronged approach would also be successful.

There's one small problem there. Jamie Oliver is a thick-tongued gobshyte who doesn't practice what he preaches but is more than happy to leap on any passing band wagon.

meritaten

The thing is, I believe, many of todays parents are NOT nutritionally educated! many of them have been brought up as the Turkey Twizzler generation and see nothing wrong in that. Forum members, are to my mind, far more likely to be nutritionally aware than the average parent. Not flattery but I have observed this for myself, just read the threads and posts!
These uneducated parents (and I DONT mean to sound condescending) go round the supermarket and they are told by the labelling (and we are all encouraged to read the labels arent we?) that this item or that item is 'IDEAL FOR LUNCHBOXES', and they take that as gospel!
Hence the Dairylea Dunkables - which I freely admit would have been in No1 sons lunchbox had they been available then. He would eat next to nothing packable except junk! so he got sent with some rather than go hungry! He ate healthily at home though!
I think this is the bones of my anger at the Nazi lunchbox police - They are assuming that a child doesnt not eat well at home! Also, as Atrix points out - the parent has PAID for the contents of the lunchbox - the school are not allowed to keep it or bin it!
btw - school may well make special cake, but many cake and muffin recipes are healthy and Parents do send them into school - do we have to provide the recipe used as well to PROVE they were a healthy option?