There have been a few articles in newspapers* recently about school’s policing lunchboxes and so many conflicting opinions on the subject. So, is school’s policing our children’s lunchboxes the right way to go?
Lets look at some of the benefits of school’s policing lunchboxes:
- Children will be eating healthier food and hopefully continue this through to adulthood
- Children will be better equipped to concentrate in class
- Have a decreased chance of becoming obese, getting Type 2 Diabetes or other chronic illness.
This disadvantages are:
- Food is being sent home even if it is something healthy but disguised in the shape of a muffin
- Children may be going hungry
- Children are feeling embarrassed by being singled out for having something that is considered a wrong type of food in their lunchbox
On the flip side for us as parents, is the fact that we are now feeling dictated to by schools as to what we can pack in our children’s lunch boxes. As parents, we have the right to pack what we like for our children. Sometimes though we do not pack the right types of foods that will help our children perform best throughout the day. This could be due to financial reasons, time constraints of busy parents or just because we need some education ourselves as to what is considered a ‘healthy’ food. Some packaged foods that we are led to believe are healthy, simply aren’t and we don’t even realise some of the ingredients they are putting in them are detrimental to our health.
So, what is the solution?
Certainly the one pronged (stick) approach to remove the unwanted items from lunch boxes by teachers is not the way to go. Teachers are not aware of what actually goes into these homebaked goods and parents shouldn’t need to write an ingredients list to go along with the item to school just so their child can eat it.
Whilst ‘policing’ the lunchboxes has good intent, it is not getting to The Root Cause of why it’s necessary to pack healthier lunchboxes.
Firstly, we need to educate our children about the differences between wholefoods and packaged foods, so they understand the affect these foods have on their bodies. They need to learn ‘packaged’ foods contain additives and preservatives that will affect their behaviour, energy levels and concentration. They need to know healthy food such as a good mix of proteins, fats and carbs will help their brain function better, provide them with more energy and make them feel better. More importantly, they need to learn that healthy food can be yummy too. Children need to be educated – to understand the why, rather than the ‘stick’ approach. This can be taught to children through education programs like The Mad Food Science Program™ at school.
The second approach is we need to educate ourselves as parents about what these packaged foods are doing to our children. Do parents realise the sugar high and crash some of these ‘packaged’ lunchbox items give their children? Probably not, as we are not at school to witness what these items do to our children. We need educate parents how to minimise sugars to prevent the sugar rollercoaster and what the long term health implications are if we don’t change what we put in their lunchbox. And even if the children have low sugar items or aren’t affected by sugar, there is then the cocktail of additives and preservatives that most packaged food contains. These can also have dramatic affects on mood, behaviour and learning. This is the reason why I developed The 5 Minute Healthy Lunchbox System™ – to help teach parents how to pack a healthy lunchbox with foods that help our children’s health rather than hinder it.
If you’d like to have The Mad Food Science Program™ at your school, please contact us directly. If you want to join a community of like minded parents who are wanting to pack healthy lunchboxes, you can learn more about The 5 Minute Healthy Lunchbox System™ eCourse here.
* Read the reports and responses below.