school meals and children

[Daave]

im watching the news, and they are going on about the school meals,
who here has kids, and who lets them eat crap at school?
and why?

[ummmm]

I have three and I would never let them eat crap. The school dinners are not too bad. They only have chips once a week. If I do packed lunch it's always healthy with milk for a drink.

[cameo]

I have 2 daughters. They both take packed lunch, this is their choice.
It's nothing to do with the school dinners it's just that we have a proper dinner in the evening so they don't really want to have 2 'dinners' a day.

[Daave]

you see the thing is:

both of your replies are completely literate, im thinking that the more, how do i put this, the more "informed" people, will see that their children are brought up and eat food that isnt complete junk, feeding good food to kids is just part of good parenting by good well educated people

on the other hand, i just watched a news program where a 12 year old girl said "i dont like eating healthy food, i prefer chocolate and sweets and crisps",

hmm, maybe im reading too much into this..

i cant write what i want to, itll just get taken straight back off later..
but i really dont know what to make of it all anymore..


about 2 or 3 years ago i read an artical in a magazine about a 14 year old girl, this girl was fat, really really really fat.. and it wasnt a "medical condition" her mums quote in the magazine was something like " ive tried to feed her healthy food, but she wont eat it, and then after not eating her dinner she just raids the chocolate cupboard"

well, call me old fashioned, (although im only 24) when i was a kid, we didnt have a "chocolate cupboard" and if i was the same size and shape as a frikkin elephant my parents would have FORCED me to eat proper food and move about a bit more..


i just wondered where and when this mis-information came into play... parents are fully responsible for their kids, so why the hell arent they made to enforce good eating behaviour???

[Pippa68]

We don't have school meals in the primary schools in our area ~ but the high school has a canteen.

My 2 at primary school take in a healthy packed lunch, and my son at high school has a packed lunch 3 times a week & canteen lunch the other two days. The canteen has changed it's menu and chips are only served on Fridays..the rest of the week there is a very healthy menu (no burgers or sausages anymore). I let my son choose what he wants to eat in the canteen & to be honest he prefers the 'home cooked' style dishes.

My daughter is at college and refuses to eat in the canteen there as it is pretty crap..she takes in her own sandwiches & fruit.

[Daave]

this is exactly what i mean,

although they are not 100% keen on the food, they still have informed sensible choices,

where do they find the kids who say they prefer chocolate?

they interview them on the telly and make them look stupid...



they dont have school meals in a primary school?? im not asking for your address, but whereabouts do you live? when did they take out the school meals, what do the other kids do instead? was there a time when these schools did have the food? and if so, when did it stop, and what did the press make of it?



i dont think that kids should be force-fed lettuce and just plates and plates of veg, but i think that due to a lot of things, kids have ended up eating burgers and chips everyday, and with less physical activities and more sitting infront of a computer (just like i am right now !!!) its led to kids becoming more unhealthy over the last, well 10 years.. before that it wasnt hte same kind of problem was it?

[Pippa68]

Hi Daave.

We live in West Sussex. The local council decided to do away with hot school meals about 6/7 years ago. Parents have to send a packed lunch to school, and those entitled to free meals have a packed lunch prepared for them by a sandwich box company. The reason given was that it was no longer economically viable to offer hot school meals.

There were quite a few objections to this, but all protests fell on deaf ears.

[B00]

Really don't agree with the doing away of hot meals at lunch for children idea at all!

All very well and good for the more affluent parents and children, but what about inner city school? Maybe that hot meal was the one decent meal they were getting that day???

[sophieb]

My kids' school(primary) has pretty good lunches cooked on the premises. They have no vending machines or tuck shop either! there are some kids who walk in the school gate at 9am with a mars bar and a can of coke! Both of mine have only been fed healthy stuff since they started eating food! They turn their noses up at chicken nuggets and anything else that comes in a frozen box! All it requires is a little effort from the parents to say "no, you're not eating crap!".They don't get crap at school e.g.chicken casserole with potato and carrot,pasta dishes with tomato nd herb sauce etc. Some of the parents wont let their kids have school dinners cos " he doesnt like that stuff"! Eating habits begin at home!

[ummmm]

I'm still annoyed that maggie thatcher's a milk snatcher......I use to love my little bottle of milk at break!

[Pippa68]

That was one of our arguments, BOO ~ not the inner city thing (we are in a town) but the fact that a lot of parents work, and as a lot of the kids go to after school clubs and don't get picked up until after 6.00pm some parents liked the idea of the main meal being during the day, and sarnies or salads for tea. Of course the parents not on benefits had to make sure packed lunches were ready in the morning too, which can be a bit of a bind when you are rushing about for work...

The fact that the choice was taken away from us was the bugbear!

[Pippa68]

Our kids kept having milk right up until Blair got in, ummmm ~ Thatcher didn't snatch the milk from my kids schools that's for sure ;o)

[rosepetal]

My son has just started school. On the first day he stayed for lunch, I was invited for lunch as well. I was told off by a dinner lady for not having a portion of green beans with spaghetti bolognese! A few days later my son told me that he'd had mashed potato and pizza. We would never eat these combinations at home! The following week and from then on he took sandwiches!
It irritated me as rather than educating children about food properly by showing them how delicious healthy food can be, their new 'healthy 'eating policy is that children should have a main item with one/two veg and a starch item and who cares if they don't go together or if they don't get eaten. As usual they are paying lip service, but not achieving anything.
By the way, my son still gets free milk too;)

[posiedon]

your right pippa 68, i think ummmm was trying to say is that thatcher took away all free milk, alot of parents who were on the breadline or just could'nt afford to pay the milk subscription. I remember it well as i was in the last year of first school, ( incidentally i think thatcher has to go down in history as the most hated prime minster in history, does anybody else agree?).

[Pippa68]

Most parents on the breadline had free milk tokens ~ these could and still can be used to pay the milkman or used in stores, so I don't really see how taking away free milk in schools affects families too much...I am much more concerned about taking away the school meals service..something which affects not only the breadline families but the wealthier families too.

Not sure about Thatcher being the most hated PM. Sure she had her faults..which PM didn't/doesn't? she made mistakes, but on the whole I liked her & to be honest I reckon we could do with someone like her back in power.

*awaits the flames* LOL.

[Beanmistriss]

Rose petal I love mashed potato and pizza as a combo. Not all the time obviously as I would then be a total chunker but it does taste good together :)

[Jules001]

my kids are 18 and 14, their primary school never had hot food everyone has a packed lunch and the kids on free dinners get a box with a sandwich, drink, piece of fruit and yogurt in it. The local High School has a canteen and on my Son's first day (he still took a packed lunch) but I think because of the novelty of the situation, most kids opted to get something in the canteen, the queue was so long that a lot of kids never got served before the lunch time was over so went hungry. We learnt from experience and my daughter when she started opted to have a packed lunch and still chooses to have a similar lunch to primary school, ie a sandwich or salad, piece of fruit and a box of raisins, the only change has been that she now doesn't take blackcurrant juice (bottled at home from well diluted reduced sugar drink) and chooses to drink water. My son (18 y.o) now at College eats pizza, McDonalds, Subway or shop bought sandwiches. I've set the example but can't enforce it although he does eat at home almost every night when I make sure he gets good food and fruit and veg

[BagPussAA]

I agree that it is the feeding habits of the parents that is more of a problem. I remember a story on the news a few weeks ago about parents buying fish and chips and smuggling them to the kids so they would not have to eat the healthy choice given to them at school.

By the way Pippa, I agree with you about Maggie.. I thought she was a very strong PM and wish we could have another like her today.. Maybe the country would not be in such a mess

[Daave]

the story on the news about the fish and chips wasnt reported properly, i heard through a newspaper and nother website that the parents had nicked a shoppingtrolley, bought a S**tload of fish and chips and were selling them to the kids through the fence for a profit,

they were parents to one of the kids in school, but everyy kid in the school who wanted something other than the schools offerings were given the chance to get fish and chips..

that was cut down for the press and edited to sound like a more individual parent - children ratio..

if what i heard (and just wrote) is true, then that is just sick!!!

[aurelia]

I work in a school and can see what is meant about the healthy eating policy as it has gone a bit mad. Our school is a primary and secondary for children with special needs. Their is a much better choice in the Secondary even though it is the same school but in two separate buildings. thye only serve chips once a week with fish which is wrapped in home-made breadcrumbs. If I take fish and chips I prefer baked beans along with it to moisten it but they serve sweetcorn. There is often baked beans there but they can't serve you the baked beans as that was laid on for serving with the baked potaotes.

If you take salad from the dsalad bar, which I do every other day and take one slice of meat or tuna and ojn occasion lift a boiled egg - you will be screamed at across the lunchhall as though you were a child of three - that's two pieces of protein - you can't take egg and meat - their both protein.

The story in the papers about the parents getting junk food for kids was apalling. The thing that got me was that they were getting it for other children in the playground. Imagine if that was your child and you had sent them to school thinking they were eating healthily only to discover or not to discover that this moron had invaded yours and your child's privacy.

IF THEY WANTED TO KILL THEIR OWN KIDS THAT'S THEIR PERROGATIVE BUT THEY HAD ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHT TO GET ANOTHER CHILD FOOD UNLESS THEY WERE THEIR GUARDIAN

[katangel26]

Pippa68. I used to have milk at primary school until Thatcher stopped it, I had working parents so it affected me as I never had the 'free milk' I always had, regardless of what tokens parents got that didn't work or had a low income.