Parents - your kids are bringing garbage snacks to school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I send my kid heathy food to school, but they get fed a bunch of garbage at school. Free (junk) food for all. Yea. You can’t win

You can put a note on their account.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are not watching out for this you should be.

On a daily basis I have kids bringing for snack (not dessert):

Packaged muffins, cookies, brownies, Doritos, cheetos. And the quantities they are bringing are astounding too.

This is terrible brain food. It makes them sleepy, unfocused and it’s terrible for their health too!

+1

I am shocked at what parents are packing for their kids for lunch. But, I have also seen that most parents are also pretty ignorant about what constitutes healthy food. The horrible diet impacts their classroom behaviour and their focus in academics.

I used to care about it. But, now, I think it is going to be the survival of the fittest in the future, and if these kids have bad health and bad outcomes in academics, I am no longer sweating it.

They have to live in this country with broken down healthcare. Good luck to them. Let them eat Doritos and Marshmallows. Their bleak future is on their parents and no one else.

- a parent who agrees with you.

[Anonymous]

Some of these kids are eating all this junk, chemicals, hormones laced and ultra processed food and they are huge as hippopotomuses. The boys have manboobs and protruding bellies and the girls look that they have birthed and nursed 3 kids. The lower half of their legs are splayed when they walk because their thighs are so huge. They cannot cross their legs when they sit on a chair.

There are many versions of Honey Boo Boo now.

[Anonymous]

Please have patience and tolerance. Most people are doing the best they can. Show some empathy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a kindergarten teacher and there’s almost a 100% correlation between quality of snacks and quality of the kid (behavior and academic achievement). Lots of PPs seem offended by this but I’m telling you what I see. Same with how long they’re in after care, but I suspect that will get even more outrage (and to be fair, it’s a good correlation but not nearly as strong a correlation as the snacks).

Define quality of snacks for a kindergartner.

Greek yogurt, baby belle cheese, a banana, veggies and hummus, veggies and guacamole, an apple, a small tortilla rolled up with ham and cheese. I’m no nutritionist but I see lots of good options and they don’t get thrown away. I think there are some good bars for kids too but don’t really inspect them. I see plenty of cheeze-its and Oreos too.

A lot of these things are only good if kept cold. Not making excuses but it isn’t easy to find low sugar shelf stable snacks that don’t contain nuts.

[Anonymous]

The laziest parents of all send babybel cheese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please have patience and tolerance. Most people are doing the best they can. Show some empathy.

No. A sleeve of cookies is not the “best you can.” Even if you can’t manage to prepare anything, at least buy skinny pop and gogo squeeze.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a kindergarten teacher and there’s almost a 100% correlation between quality of snacks and quality of the kid (behavior and academic achievement). Lots of PPs seem offended by this but I’m telling you what I see. Same with how long they’re in after care, but I suspect that will get even more outrage (and to be fair, it’s a good correlation but not nearly as strong a correlation as the snacks).

Define quality of snacks for a kindergartner.

Greek yogurt, baby belle cheese, a banana, veggies and hummus, veggies and guacamole, an apple, a small tortilla rolled up with ham and cheese. I’m no nutritionist but I see lots of good options and they don’t get thrown away. I think there are some good bars for kids too but don’t really inspect them. I see plenty of cheeze-its and Oreos too.

A lot of these things are only good if kept cold. Not making excuses but it isn’t easy to find low sugar shelf stable snacks that don’t contain nuts.

Literally any fruit or vegetable will make it to snack time with an ice pack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please have patience and tolerance. Most people are doing the best they can. Show some empathy.

No. A sleeve of cookies is not the “best you can.” Even if you can’t manage to prepare anything, at least buy skinny pop and gogo squeeze.

LOL at gogo squeeze being a decent choice by any metric. You’re adorable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you propose that parents force their kids to eat healthier food while at school?

Parents can pack healthy snacks (I did for years) but if the kids don't eat them (which also happened for years), you are left with hungry kids. So parents pack food that they know their kids will eat, so the kids eat.

Don’t buy garbage and they can’t eat garbage. This is not rocket science.

There is a direct correlation between the students that are focused and engaged and the students bringing healthy snacks. Yes I am a teacher (OP.)

I found out one kid trades her fruit for Doritos.

After that I relaxed a bit about what we send for lunch and snack (still not Doritos) and are serving extra fruit and veggies at home.

The other kid - in lower elementary - will not eat at school if it isn’t appealing to him in that moment. We had a 7 year old not eating from 7:30am breakfast until getting home at 5:15. Disaster! You know what’s better than that? Something in a package that he will eat, and extra fruits and veggies at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you propose that parents force their kids to eat healthier food while at school?

Parents can pack healthy snacks (I did for years) but if the kids don't eat them (which also happened for years), you are left with hungry kids. So parents pack food that they know their kids will eat, so the kids eat.

Don’t buy garbage and they can’t eat garbage. This is not rocket science.

There is a direct correlation between the students that are focused and engaged and the students bringing healthy snacks. Yes I am a teacher (OP.)

I found out one kid trades her fruit for Doritos.

After that I relaxed a bit about what we send for lunch and snack (still not Doritos) and are serving extra fruit and veggies at home.

The other kid - in lower elementary - will not eat at school if it isn’t appealing to him in that moment. We had a 7 year old not eating from 7:30am breakfast until getting home at 5:15. Disaster! You know what’s better than that? Something in a package that he will eat, and extra fruits and veggies at home.

If you keep sending fruits, your kids will eventually eat fruits. Even if they exchange it for Doritos, they are not always going to get Doritos. Besides, at least some kid is eating healthy, no?
It is better to be hungry then to eat junk. If they are hungry, the hunger will guide them towards eating healthier options.

[Anonymous]

The school cafeteria sells Doritos and cookies for a dollar and there's no way to prevent my kid from buying them. It's a lot cheaper for me to send it from home instead

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The laziest parents of all send babybel cheese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get back to me when you can fix the following:

- Nut bans in schools
- Inability to refrigerate snacks (we aren't even allows to send snacks in an insulated bag -- lunch, yes, but snacks have to be separate and in a disposable container or a clear plastic reusable bag)
- What to do when I send a healthy snack in and my kid won't eat it because all the other kids have crackers or chips and so that's all she wants

I tried healthy snacks for a long time but they just came home uneaten and my kid complained. I gave up, now I send in bags of teddy grahams or animal crackers. It's not what I want but she actually eats them and it takes the edge off until lunch.

I don't control the school environment and have to work within what it offers. The environment isn't conducive to healthy snacks.

I have never more wholeheartedly agreed with a post before!

Yeah, the food allergy kids are the reason your kids eat cr*p!!!

Grow up. Tell your kid they can eat what you send or wait until lunch.

Nut bans don’t actually keep kids with nut allergies safer.

Public schools don’t have this anyway. I’m a teacher and have a nut allergic kid. Rarely a kid will have a severe nut allergy and that specific classroom will be nut free but the school and cafeteria still won’t. And even that is rare. Also, absolutely no one is banning ice packs or thermoses.

My kids public school classrooms for k through 2 were all completely nut free, which limited the types of snacks we were allowed to send in. Even in older grades when the teachers would request snacks for parties there were nut, dairy, gluten etc limitations on what we could send in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a kindergarten teacher and there’s almost a 100% correlation between quality of snacks and quality of the kid (behavior and academic achievement). Lots of PPs seem offended by this but I’m telling you what I see. Same with how long they’re in after care, but I suspect that will get even more outrage (and to be fair, it’s a good correlation but not nearly as strong a correlation as the snacks).

Define quality of snacks for a kindergartner.

Greek yogurt, baby belle cheese, a banana, veggies and hummus, veggies and guacamole, an apple, a small tortilla rolled up with ham and cheese. I’m no nutritionist but I see lots of good options and they don’t get thrown away. I think there are some good bars for kids too but don’t really inspect them. I see plenty of cheeze-its and Oreos too.

A lot of these things are only good if kept cold. Not making excuses but it isn’t easy to find low sugar shelf stable snacks that don’t contain nuts.

Literally any fruit or vegetable will make it to snack time with an ice pack.

We are not allowed to send ice packs with snacks. They have to be separately packed from their lunch and cannot require any kind of refrigeration. My kid gets crackers, pretzels, popcorn, a cereal bar, or very occasionally a treat like cookies. Her lunch is all the healthy items people are listing as healthy snack options, because her lunch can be sent in an insulated bag with an ice pack.

I have no idea if her teachers see her lunch, but if some teacher is sitting around judging me for sending some graham crackers or pirate's booty for a snack, she can shove it. Truly. I don't judge teachers by like the one annoying compromise they make in their classrooms every day (and every public school teacher makes at least one of these, understandably, because like parents, they are often expected to perform at a high level under impossible parameters). I refuse to sit her and apologize for freaking crackers.